


Not the Fire but the Spark

by goldenraeofsun



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic Jo Harvelle, Beekeeper Castiel (Supernatural), Demisexual Castiel (Supernatural), Friends to Lovers, Gardener Castiel (Supernatural), Jo Harvelle & Dean Winchester Friendship, Lawyer Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tattoo Artist Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27938487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenraeofsun/pseuds/goldenraeofsun
Summary: Dean refused to look up his soulmate. His parents ran into each other by chance. Karen stopped by Bobby’s garage after her car unexpectedly broke down. Sam got seated next to Eileen on a plane, and he spent two hours miming conversation before she admitted she read lips.Was it stupid for Dean to hold out for a story like that? Probably.But he doesn’t regret his decision - not until Castiel Novak wanders into his tattoo parlor, asking about a cover up for his soulmark.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 507
Kudos: 1640
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection, The Fanfic Book Club





	1. Daffodil

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thank you to [tiamatv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/) who is the best beta any writer could ask for.
> 
> This fic is complete, and chapters will be posted every 2-3 days!

“We’re having a baby!” Sam signs enthusiastically, nearly knocking his gigantor hands into the salad bowl.

Dean almost drops his fork. He turns to Eileen, who’s smiling sheepishly next to Sam. Dean flounders for almost a beat too long, gaping. “That’s great! How far along are you?”

“Six weeks,” Eileen says proudly.

“I wanted to tell you as soon as we found out,” Sam says, and Eileen’s eyes narrow as she reads his signs, “but the doctor advised waiting until the first trimester.”

“First trimester?” Dean repeats. “Isn’t that like three months?” It doesn’t take Sam levels of genius to add _six weeks_ and _first trimester_ and come up with a 404 error message.

“Sam couldn’t wait,” EIleen explains, half fond, half exasperated.

Sam shrugs, unrepentant. “Nobody else knows, so don’t spread it around.”

“Cross my heart,” Dean says with a grin. “You know if I’m getting a little niece or nephew?” He gasps dramatically, “Or both? Is it _twins?”_

Eileen shudders. “I don’t think my uterus is big enough for two of him.” She jerks her head towards Sam as Dean laughs.

“We’re hoping for a girl, but we won’t know for sure for another two months,” Sam says. He shares a quick look with Eileen before saying, “We’d name her Karen.”

 _After Karen Singer,_ goes unsaid. Dean swallows down the lump in his throat. “Does Bobby know?”

Sam shakes his head. “We’re waiting to tell him and the rest of the family in a few weeks. But from his stories, there was nobody else we’d name our first child after.”

Dean has only heard Karen stories on rare occasions. Bobby usually keeps his memories of her bottled up tight, only letting them out after too much to drink.

Dean only heard Bobby talk about Karen stone-cold sober one time. Dean had only been professionally tattooing for a few months, and he’d been nearly as nervous as Bobby when he came in for his appointment. As Dean finished outlining the morning glories on Bobby’s forearm, right over the spot where Karen’s name used to be, Bobby blurted, “She loved these damn flowers but couldn’t keep them alive for the life of her. They’re supposed to last a season, but I’d always have to buy new ones halfway through.” It was like a dam had burst: all these details, everyday things, like how she used to hum while she cooked.

It was the first and only time Dean saw Bobby cry. 

Dean shovels more pasta in his mouth as Eileen gets up to show him a picture of their first ultrasound.

Sam asks, “You okay?”

Dean nods robotically. He swallows with only a little difficulty. “I can’t believe it,” he says. “You’re having a _kid._ You’re gonna be a dad.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, sounding a little dazed. “I’m trying not to think about that part.”

Dean throws him a reassuring grin. “You’re gonna be great.”

“Hopefully,” Sam says with a grimace.

“Hey,” Dean looks Sam dead in the eye, “how many parenting books have you got?”

Sam’s brow furrows. “I’m not sure. Eileen says I have a problem.”

Dean laughs. “You’ll do fine. Plus, you know the moment you tell Bobby that you’re naming your kid after his soulmate, you’re gonna have to beat him off with a stick.”

Sam nods, his face still troubled, as Dean belatedly picks at his pasta.

“Have you given any thought to your soulmate?” Sam asks.

Dean freezes. 

“Starting a family?” Sam prompts.

Dean squashes down his unease. He absentmindedly runs a finger down the soulmark on forearm. “You know I haven’t found him yet.”

“You could look,” Sam points out logically, the son of a bitch.

Dean shakes his head and stabs more pasta onto his fork. “Not my thing.”

Their parents met when Mom bumped into Dad outside of a movie theater; she knocked him flat on his ass, and he asked for coffee to make up for it. 

Bobby met Karen when she came into Elkin’s garage, where he was working. She was passing through on her way to Billings, but her car had died right on the city limits of Sioux Falls.

Hell, Sam met Eileen by chance when they were seated next to each other on a plane. She made him spend the first two hours of the flight miming through conversation before she admitted she could read lips.

“Dean,” Sam says, his voice tinged with exasperation. “Just because-”

“Drop it.”

Is it stupid to hold out for a story like that? Probably. 

Charlie found Dorothy through a soulmate matching site, and she couldn’t be happier about it. Benny found Andrea through Facebook. Aaron’s fiance found him earlier this year by searching for his name online and driving an hour to The Ink Barn to see if he was the real deal.

“I’m just saying,” Sam says quickly as Dean eats mutinously at him, “I could help you get started.”

“No,” Dean spits, his mouth full.

Sam rolls his eyes in disgust at Dean’s eating habits and life choices.

Fine by Dean. Sam might be a hot-shot lawyer saving little kids, married to the best wife on the planet, and expecting a baby, but Dean’s still his older brother. He doesn’t need Sam’s approval to do anything. Never has. 

When Dean was a teenager, Bobby had hinted that Dean would make a great mechanic, but he gave up showing Dean how to replace a fan belt or fix a car’s AC when Dean doodled all through the lessons. 

Sam had been wholeheartedly on board the mechanic train, and, privately, Dean’s not sure he never got off. Sam likes helping people. Making someone’s car work again, so they could get from point A to point B, that’s a type of help Sam could understand.

Tattooing, not so much.

Sam gradually warmed up to the idea, and even went to Dean for his first and only tattoo. But Dean’s never shaken the feeling Sam would rather see him wearing coveralls instead of ink.

Thankfully, Eileen comes back with a picture of their first ultrasound, diverting the soulmate conversation for the time being. Probably not for long, though, knowing Sam. Sometimes the guy could be more single-minded than the Hulk on steroids.

* * *

Dean rubs a hand down his face, his palm catching on a few days’ worth of stubble. He tips back the last of his beer and slips outside. The music only quiets to a dull roar as the door shuts behind him. 

He’s debating the pros and cons of making an Irish goodbye when Jo finds him leaning against the building, idly spinning the Impala’s keys around his finger.

“Hey,” she says as she approaches. “I saw you bail.”

Dean shrugs. “Wasn’t really my scene.”

“Since when is an open bar not you?” Jo asks, eyebrows raised.

Dean throws her an exasperated look. “You know what I mean.” He gestures to the engagement party back inside. “This can’t be what you wanted to do with your Saturday night.”

Jo leans against the wall next to him. “I mean, open bars are always good.”

Dean snorts. “We sound like well-adjusted people.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Jo retorts, “I was perfectly happy gettin’ down with one of Aaron’s cousins - how large is his goddamn family, anyway? - until I saw you brood your way out the door.”

Dean crosses his arms over his chest. “I just came out here to think.”

“You figure out the secrets of the universe, yet, Steven Hawking? Come on,” Jo nudges him with her elbow, “let’s get back inside. Aaron’s got to have a cousin or an aunt who’s into you.” She grins. “Or a randy uncle.”

“No thanks.”

Jo releases a theatrical gasp. _“Dean Singer_ is turning down a meaningless fling. Are you _dying?”_

Dean scowls. “Shut up.”

Jo drops the teasing attitude. “Hey, it’s okay. If you’re not feeling it, you’re not feeling it. We could go back to my place and watch _50 Fir-_ ”

“Eileen’s pregnant,” Dean cuts her off. “Sam told me a few weeks ago.”

“That’s good, right?” Jo lowers her voice to an undertone, half-joking and half-serious. “It’s not an oopsie baby, is it?”

Despite himself, Dean laughs. “They’d been trying for the past couple months. I think they’re gonna tell everyone next weekend, so pretend to be surprised.”

“Good for them!” Jo says enthusiastically before she catches sight of Dean’s expression. “Not good?”

“No, I know, logically, it’s good,” Dean says. Christ, he could use another drink. Tipsy enough to start the conversation but not drunk enough to finish it. Typical Dean.

“... and illogically?” Jo asks, and judging by her face, she already knows the answer.

Dean heaves a weighty sigh. He’s been down this road with Jo before, after too many drinks to count and too many Lifetime movies to name. “Sam’s gettin’ on with his life. Benny spent last week looking at houses with Andrea. Hell, even _Aaron_ is fucking engaged. And I’m sittin’ here doin’ the same old thing.”

Jo is quiet before she says, “You could always find him.” She shoots a pointed look at Dean’s arm. “He’s out there.”

Dean rubs an absent thumb where _Castiel Novak_ is inked in stark black on his inner forearm. “I could,” he echoes, without any real intent. 

Jo rolls her eyes. “You’re such a fucking romantic. It makes me want to hurl.”

“Don’t drink as much next time,” Dean shoots back without any heat. She’s barely buzzed while Dean is drunk enough to get maudlin at an engagement party.

“I’m just saying,” Jo pushes off the wall and takes a few steps backwards towards the door, “If you’re feeling stuck, it’s your own damn fault. Man up, Singer, or at least stop griping to me about it.” She salutes him goodbye, and his eyes catch, as they always do, on her blank forearm, before she ducks back into the party.

That night, Dean doesn’t look up his Castiel Novak. He has another drink, congratulates Aaron, and texts Sam an endless stream of pukey faces and shit emojis - plus a baby emoji every once in a while to make sure Sam understands.

Three months later, Pam hires Claire Novak as The Ink Barn’s summer intern to man the front desk and update the website. On her first day, Dean almost opens his mouth to ask her if she knows a _Castiel_ _,_ but he doesn’t.

* * *

“I’m looking for Pamela Barnes.”

Claire jumps. “I’ll deal with you later,” she says darkly to Dean, already hitching up her fake-ass service smile as she turns back around.

Dean straightens guiltily from where he's leaning over the welcome desk. She’s only been at The Ink Barn two weeks, but she already called Dean an old man _way_ too many times and refused to cough up any M&Ms from her stash beneath the counter.

Joke’s on her, though, since Dean grabs two or three on his way home after she’s already left for the day.

Claire starts, “Welcome to The Ink - oh.” Her face sours as she takes in the newcomer, “What do you want?”

The customer frowns.

“Claire,” Dean admonishes, “That’s no way to talk to-”

“Her uncle,” the man supplies quickly. “I’m sure her normal job performance is exemplary, right, Claire?”

Claire rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sure. Tell Dad that if he asks.”

“Are you here for a… tattoo?” Dean asks, looking the man up and down. He certainly doesn't seem like the type, what with his tax accountant getup and flasher trenchcoat. Bundled from neck to toe isn’t a good sign in a tattoo parlor.

“I am,” he says.

Claire gapes. “You are?” she asks before Dean can get the same words out.

“Yes,” the man says as he looks around The Ink Barn.

“You,” Claire repeats flatly.

“What?” the man asks, eyebrows raised. _“I_ don’t have an overbearing father who disapproves of tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications.”

“Yeah, but you…” Claire drifts off, her face conflicted.

“You stormed out of family dinner before I could help make your case,” the man says with a shrug.

“You changed Dad’s mind?” Claire asks hopefully.

The man shifts his weight to his other foot. “Well… you know Jimmy.”

Claire huffs a loud sigh and crosses her arms over her chest. “Then thanks for nothing, Uncle Cas.”

“But this was another point of contention between you and your father,” Cas continues matter-of-factly, as Claire’s jaw drops. “So I came here to show him not only delinquents and the mentally ill get tattoos. I’ve been considering getting one for a few months, anyway.”

“You have?” Dean interjects. 

Cas nods, his eyes once again flickering to the exposed brick walls of The Ink Barn, displaying concept designs and art. “I made an appointment with Pamela Barnes for noon today.”

Claire makes a face. “Pam said she had a family emergency or something. She’ll be in tomorrow, though.”

Cas’s brow furrows. “Should I come back?”

“Well, the appointment says today was going to be a consultation.” Claire points to her computer screen. “He’s free,” she says, jerking her head in Dean’s direction. “Since I’m going to call it now and say you didn’t book this place because of _Pam.”_

“She was the only one who fit in my lunch break,” Cas says, uncertain. “And her name is on the building.”

“Fuck that-”

“Language, Claire,” Cas says warningly.

“-you’ll want him instead,” Claire says, jerking her head in Dean’s direction, to his infinite surprise. “Don’t tell anyone else,” she says in a stage whisper, “but his flowers are _to die for._ So delicate and… girly. Right up your alley, Uncle Cas.”

Dean scowls but doesn’t deny it because he _does_ do the best nature work. He’s not gonna apologize for that.

Cas rolls his eyes. “She’s only saying that because I am an amateur gardener.” He presses his lips together. “I can get quite passionate about it.”

Claire butts in, “He once spent a whole dinner party going on about aphids.”

Cas pinks. “Thank you, Claire.”

Claire grins.

“Right,” Dean says as he points past the welcome desk, “Why don’t we talk in the back? I promise if you don’t want flowers, we don’t have to tell Claire.”

Cas smiles as he follows. “Thank you.”

They ignore Claire’s pointed noise of offense behind them.

Dean leads Cas past Pam’s empty station, past Aaron cleaning up after a client, Tessa tapping on her phone between appointments, and Jo working on Benny. “Here,” Dean says, gesturing for Cas to take a seat at his station. “Now, what can I do you for?”

Cas’s eyes wander around Dean’s cubicle, and Dean tries to take it in with new eyes. Sky-blue, chest-height dividers separate his station with Jo’s. Uniform, black-rimmed picture frames showcasing his art cover the naked brick walls above. There’s a decent amount of delicate flowers and insects that look like old-fashioned naturalist engravings - Dean’s current specialty. But also a few pop culture figures and, tucked away in the corner, Princess Leia in a slave bikini straddling a 20-sided die.

Cas’s gaze pauses on several designs of people’s inner forearms. He has a jumpy look behind his eyes, but he looks calmer as he sits down.

Cas wraps one hand around his own arm, and Dean’s eyebrows rise. “A soulmark thing?” he guesses.

Cas stares at him. “How did you know?”

“You have a tell, dude,” Dean says, barely hiding his smile.

“I do?” he asks, clueless.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Touching the spot and looking shifty as shit are dead giveaways.” He drops his joking expression. “Did they… pass on? If so, I’d recommend some grief therapy before you jump into covering the mark up.”

Cas’s fingers gradually unclench around his forearm. “No, they’re not dead.”

“That’s good,” Dean says, relieved. “Then what are you looking for? I’ve done some name plates, and they’re not all flower crown designs, no matter what Claire tells you. I once did the outline of an ulna - the client was a doctor - and designed around the mark so it looked like it was etched into the bone.” Dean points to the picture he later took, slightly over his left shoulder. The last name of the mark is blurred out, but the first name, _Bela_ _,_ is clearly visible.

Cas shakes his head forcefully. “No, I don’t want to emphasize the name. I want to place a tattoo over it.”

“You want a cover up,” Dean says flatly.

“Yes.” Cas’s eyes narrow, taking in the way Dean stiffened at his request. “If you’re uncomfortable, I can go to another artist.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Cas’s mouth pulls down into a severe frown. “If it violates your ethics-”

“Dude, this is a tattoo parlor, not PETA,” Dean says derisively. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“If you’re going to be designing artwork that permanently goes on my skin, it definitely matters,” Cas counters.

Dean sighs. “Look, I’m a professional. I can still do a good job.” He smiles lopsidedly. “You just had the bad luck of Claire setting you up with the one guy who hasn’t met his match yet.” He turns to grab his sketchbook to take down notes. “But, like I said, I’m a professional. Hell, the rest of ‘em might be _more_ biased since they’re living lives full of fluffy bunnies and twoo wuv.”

Cas tilts his head. “I don’t think you pronounced that correctly.”

Dean makes a face. “No, dude,” he raises his hands like the bishop marrying Buttercup and Humperdink, “‘Mawage is what bwings us together, today.’” He drops the act at the blank look on Cas’s face. “Seriously, nothing?”

“Are you having a stroke?” Cas asks, concerned.

Dean stares. “You’ve never seen The Princess Bride?”

Cas shakes his head slowly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean assures him before breaking out into a grin. “Make Claire show you sometime. So what were you thinking as a cover up?”

Cas reaches inside his coat and pulls out his phone. “Here are pictures of my garden,” he says, tapping a few times on the screen. “I was thinking you could draw inspiration from it?”

Dean takes the phone and swipes through a few of the images. “Yeah, I can work with this,” he hums. “Aster, clover, hyssop, anemone, goldenrod.” He looks up to see Cas staring at him, eyes huge. Dean hands the phone back.

“You know your flowers,” Cas says, dumbfounded.

“Mostly,” Dean says, pleased. He flips back a few pictures. “Don’t recognize this one, though.”

Cas barely glances at the screen. “That’s a Rocky Mountain bee plant.”

“Never inked that one before,” Dean says with a grin as he zooms in on the petals.

“All my plants are native species, which are highly attractive to pollinators like bees. Here, I actually took a picture of one,” Cas says as he snatches his phone back. He swipes at the screen a few times and hands it back to Dean.

It’s a picture of a tiny bee butt, sticking out of a Rocky Mountain bee plant. Dean’s vaguely familiar with what honeybees and bumblebees look like, but this one looks almost blue in the bright sunlight of the photo.

“Do you know what kind of bee this is?”

“Of course,” Cas looks almost offended at the question. “They’re mason bees. I have a hive of them on the edge of my garden.”

Dean’s eyebrows rise as he wordlessly gives the phone back. He’s never met a beekeeper before. Somehow he never pictured one strolling into The Ink Barn in a suit and a trenchcoat. “Which flowers do you want in your tattoo?”

“I don’t suppose ‘all of them’ is a good answer?” Cas asks sheepishly.

Dean leans forward, bracing both elbows on his knees. “I mean, if I were you, I wouldn’t include anemones, but the rest are alright."

"Why not the anemone?" Cas asks curiously. "Are they harder to tattoo?"

"If you want to carry around a flower that means _forsaken_ and _sickness_ on your arm, be my guest,” Dean says with a shrug.

“I didn't know that.”

Dean rubs the back of his neck. “After tattooing flowers on about a hundred sorority girls, you pick up a few things.” He rolls his eyes. “I once got flowers for my sister-in-law, and the florist tried putting gardenias in there, and I was like, _‘hell no do I want to tell Eileen about a secret burning passion for her.’”_ He laughs. “The florist thought I was nuts when I wanted to take it out - he had no fucking clue what it meant.”

“He didn’t?”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s not like the morons who forget anniversaries and birthdays care - so why should the florist?”

“Do they all have meanings?”

“Yeah. But seriously, if you want to coat your body in anemones, do it. Nobody pays attention to flower shit on this level.”

“Except you.”

Dean shrugs and winks. “It can be our little secret.”

Cas flushes.

Dean takes pity on him and changes the subject. “Why don’t we see what I’m gonna have to work with?” he asks, gesturing to Cas’s arm. “You can show me how big you want.”

“Of course,” Cas says as he strips out of his trench coat and shakes the cuff of his sleeve.

“Dean!”

Cas misses the button.

Dean looks up to see Jo waving to get his attention, Benny nowhere in sight. “I’m heading to the Roadhouse for lunch - you want me to pick up something for you?”

Dean grins. “My usual would be great.”

Jo’s eyes widen as she takes in Cas, standing there like a deer in the headlights. She rests her arms on the divider between their stations. “Fresh meat?”

“Don’t scare him off,” Dean says sharply before Cas can respond. “He’s a customer, not _fresh meat._ Were you raised in a barn? Like, a real one?”

Jo rolls her eyes. “I’ll tell Mom you said that.”

“If she spits in my sandwich, I’m blaming you,” Dean says as he gestures at Cas to keep rolling up his sleeve.

“Keep talking like that, and I’ll get you a veggie burger,” Jo warns as she pushes off the wall.

“You feed me one of those, and you die, Joanna Beth,” Dean calls in warning.

Jo flips him off over her shoulder with a loud laugh as she heads towards the door.

Dean turns back to Cas. “Sorry about her,” he says, “she takes some getting used to.”

“I can see that,” Cas says shakily. “Your name is Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean says curiously. “Sorry, I thought I mentioned. Dean Singer is what it says on my license too, in case you wanna see that.”

Cas’s shoulders slump with obvious relief. “No, that’s not necessary. I was worried - here.” He thrusts his arm in Dean’s face.

Dean’s heart stops dead in his chest.

Because right there on Cas’s arm, in Dean’s own handwriting, is _Dean Winchester._

“This isn’t a problem, is it?” Cas asks nervously, chewing on his lip.

Dean can’t look away from the soulmark. 

How the everloving _fuck_ does Cas know his birth name? Dean hasn’t gone by _Winchester_ in about fifteen years - since his dad plowed the Impala into oncoming traffic while on a beer run - since Bobby Singer took Dean, Sam and the Impala - since he fixed them all up good as almost new.

Dean’s gaze flicks back up to Cas’s face, and his panic eases a fraction. Cas doesn’t look like a guy who ran into his soulmate. He looks like any other nervous client before their first tattoo.

Oh.

Cas was probably remarking on how Dean shares a first name with his soulmate. 

Dean has legally been a Singer since he was a pimply-faced, sullen teenager. There’s no way Cas could have connected those dots.

Dean inhales a shaky breath. “No,” he rasps, “it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Cas presses, and, son of a bitch, Cas must be _the_ Castiel Novak on Dean’s own arm.

Dean suppresses the urge to hide his hand behind his back like a toddler caught raiding a cookie jar. If Cas hasn’t noticed yet, he probably won’t. It’s not like the colorful sleeve taking up Dean’s arm leaves much room for his soulmark, anyway. Hardly anyone can tell what it says at first glance, which was Dean’s plan all along.

Still, it’s a far cry from _covering it up._

Instead, Dean shakes his head. “It’s a long one,” he says. “I’ll figure it out, though.”

“Thank you,” Cas says as he shakes out his shirt sleeve. He pauses and looks up at Dean. “Or do you need to take measurements or something?”

Dean snorts. “It’ll be fine,” he dismisses. Fat chance he’ll forget what it looks like. “I’ve worked with soulmarks before. A cover up is a cover up.”

“Good,” Cas says distractedly as his eyes once again flicker around the art surrounding Dean’s station. His eyes linger on the shading making _Don_ glow like magic _,_ the waves lapping at _Andrea,_ the leafy vines growing around _Cesar._

Dean stares at Cas, who, to his credit, doesn’t fidget under Dean’s gaze. He stands unnaturally still, waiting for Dean to make the first move. “Look, I gotta ask,” Dean says as he sets his sketchbook down, “are you sure you want to do this?”

Cas’s face hardens. “If you’re uncomfortable, I told you-”

“No, no, I can do it,” Dean cuts him off. “I only want to know why, man.”

Cas’s gaze turns steely.

Dean plows on desperately, “You don’t want your soulmate to be able to find you?”

Cas shakes his head, and Dean is sixteen again, and some asshole just ran over the Impala, taking away his family and leaving him to put together the pieces of a ruined future alone.

He doesn’t remember the rest of Cas’s consultation, but thank god he took notes.

When he cancels the rest of his appointments for the day, Claire gives him a concerned look, but he ignores her. Pam’s out, so she can’t rip him a new one for leaving clients high and dry.

* * *

Dean gets shiftaced at the dive bar a few blocks from his apartment. He almost gets into a bar fight. He almost gets thrown out on his ass. He almost does a lot of things.

When he stumbles home, belly full of nothing but alcohol and pretzels, he passes out on the couch, waking up only to puke in the sink.

He wakes up the next day with a killer hangover and another round of vomit.

He doesn’t call in sick because Pam would kick his ass for missing two days of work. But he feels like death warmed over as he pushes open the door to The Ink Barn fifteen minutes before opening instead of his usual thirty. 

“Oh, honey,” Pam tuts as she flips her sunglasses up into her hair. She straightens up from where she’d been going over today’s schedule with Claire. She eyes him up and down, one hand on her hip, the other holding a breakfast sandwich with a single bite taken out of it. “Rough night?”

“How’d you know?” Dean croaks.

She rolls her eyes as she leads him by his elbow to her station. “Now, tell me what made you cancel on not one, but four clients yesterday and,” she looks him pointedly up and down, “almost give yourself alcohol poisoning?”

Dean shakes his head. “I’ll be fine today.”

“That _is_ my main concern, but since you made it here in once piece, not the confirmation I need right now,” Pam says evenly. “What happened yesterday?”

“Nothing.”

Pam glowers. “That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

Dean looks away. “It’s personal, Pam.”

Pam hums as she hands him half of her sandwich.

Dean narrows his eyes. “Is this a bribe?”

“It is if it works,” Pam says sweetly.

Dean ignores the sandwich in his hand. Instead, he forces as much sincerity into his voice as he can as he tells Pam, “I promise you, it won’t affect my work.”

Unimpressed, she sets her sunglasses on her desk. “Again, not my primary concern.”

“Come on,” Deam complains.

“Dean,” Pam says, “I _can_ make Bobby get it out of you.” She winks. “But I’d rather not. You know how I like doing my own dirty work myself.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I know you, kid,” Pam says. “You always feel better when you’ve got whatever’s messing with your head off your chest. Remember when Sam moved out and you thought the world was ending?”

“I told you that after, like, five shots.” Fuck it, he’s never turned down free food in his life, and he’s not gonna start now. He takes a bite of the sandwich. Pure. Bliss.

“It looks like you definitely had at least twice that without my help last night,” Pam says pointedly.

Dean wrinkles his nose. The painkillers he popped before leaving his apartment haven’t kicked in. His head is pounding; he can’t stop squinting even though the lights in The Ink Barn aren’t any brighter than usual.

“Met my soulmate yesterday,” he says gruffly, forcing the words past the lump in his throat. “Didn’t go well.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Pam says as she absently rubs a thumb along her own inner arm where _Jesse_ sits in large block print. “That’s no picnic.”

“No, it fucking isn’t,” Dean bites out. He stuffs too much sandwich in his mouth and nearly chokes.

“If you want, I can take him off your hands,” Pam says. “I’m assuming you took notes about what you talked about. I’ll give him a discount for the inconvenience and schedule him when you’re off.”

Dean blinks. “How’d you know he was a client?”

“My psychic powers,” Pam deadpans. She hits him on the arm for his blank look. “It’s written right there on your arm for anyone with eyes, you numbskull. And Claire _Novak_ was all too happy to gossip about how her uncle sent you running for the hills.”

“Fucking snitch.”

“We’ll teach her,” Pam promises as she pats his arm reassuringly. “So how about it, champ?”

Dean shakes his head. “No, I can handle him.”

Pam shoots him a shrewd look. “There’s no prize for most accumulated human misery. If the commission’s a factor, I’ll split it with you. You’ll design, and I’ll ink. We’ll make it work.”

Dean really doesn’t deserve Pam, the best boss ever. Better than Bobby, although Dean would never tell him that, because Bobby always put on Tori & Dean when he was doing the books for the scrap yard. Plus, _Pam_ never spent a week calling him an “idjit” and cursing at him in Japanese while teaching Dean to drive in the newly restored Impala.

Bobby does get major props for convincing Pam to take Dean on as an apprentice, and, later, an artist. If it wasn’t for Bobby’s intervention, Dean would probably be drawing in notebooks and working at the scrapyard.

Dean crams the rest of the sandwich in his mouth. “Fanks but no fanks, Pam.”

Pam sighs. “Suit yourself, sweetcheeks.”

* * *

Over the next week, Dean spends a stupid number of hours agonizing over the design covering up his own name on Cas’s arm. His attitude about the whole thing depends on the amount of alcohol in his stomach - sober Dean sketches with a crazed ferocity to get the whole shitshow over with so he can tell Cas to go fuck himself and never show his face around this parts, while drunk Dean falls over himself to make the most perfect tattoo, since it’s the only thing Cas will have to remember him by.

Whatever state he’s in, Dean can appreciate the poetic irony: Cas doesn’t want Dean’s name on his arm, but he’ll wind up with Dean’s mark anyway. Go fucking figure.

When Cas comes in for his first session a week later, Dean is physically prepared and, mentally, most of the way there. Whatever. Fake it ‘til you make it.

“Just don’t let him talk to you about the aphids,” Claire says darkly as Dean meets Cas in the welcome area.

“You should call your father,” Cas tells her.

Claire’s eyes flash. _“You_ should mind your own business.”

“C’mon, Claire,” Dean admonishes. Her family or not, Cas is still a customer and it is Claire’s job to welcome customers. Ideally without giving them an aneurysm at the same time.

Claire scowls at Cas, who’s now wearing an identical, matching frown.

Dean’s mouth twitches. “Let’s go, man,” he says, clapping Cas once on the shoulder. He yanks his hand back before it can linger too long. “She’s not worth it.”

“Should’ve known you’d take his side,” Claire grumbles.

“Since he’s the client, and you’re a pain in my ass,” Dean says with an eye roll, “hell yeah, I’m gonna take his side.”

“Eat me, Hasselhoff.”

Dean can’t let anyone get the last word in, let alone a twerp with Buffy hair, so he retorts, “Whatever, Girl Scout.” He hustles Cas off to his station before Claire can muster a comeback.

One bright side of his soulmate rejecting him: Dean won’t ever be tangentially related to _Claire._ Sam was a little shit when he was a teenager, but he had nothing on her.

Dean gestures for Cas to take a seat as he busies himself double-checking his setup and prepping the tattoo machine. He cleaned up and sanitized his station after his last client left twenty minutes ago, but he can never be too careful.

“So what happens now?” Cas asks as he sits back in the chair, hands folded in his lap.

“Now,” Dean says, “I put the stencil on you. We’re only doing the line art today, since I booked you for an hour and a half. We’ll see how you take the pain and go from there.”

“What will it look like?” Cas asks curiously.

“I have a couple of ideas,” Dean says, flipping to the end of his sketchbook. He hands it over and leaves Cas to peruse in as much privacy as a six-by-four cubicle allows.

Cas’s voice breaks the silence. “I like the floral composition of this one the best,” he says, tapping the page, “but,” he flips to the first design, “can we add the bee from the first one?” 

Dean spins in his chair to see which ones drew Cas’s eye. “Yeah, dude, it’s your skin,” he says as he mentally tries to figure out the best positioning for the little mason bee. “Just one though? Might look nice with three. I could probably get as many as five in there.”

Cas’s mouth purses. “Won’t it look a little… crowded?” 

“We can play with perspective to get everything in,” Dean assures. “And you won’t have to play Where’s Waldo to find all the good stuff.”

Cas smiles.

Dean’s stomach swoops. He ducks his head and takes his sketchbook from Cas’s lax grip. “I think I got a good idea for the design,” he says gruffly as he flips to the flowers Cas liked. With practiced movements, he traces the design with the stencil ink and freehands a bee on one of the aster blossoms and the suggestion of a bee in flight in the distance. 

“You are very talented,” Cas says, right in Dean’s ear. 

“Christ!” Dean jumps. He scowls. “Don’t sneak up while I’m drawing. Personal space, dude.”

“My apologies.” Cas draws back, chastened. “I was curious.”

Dean’s shoulders slump. He can’t blame a guy for that. It is his first, after all. Dean was practically vibrating out of his skin before he got his first tattoo. He leans back a bit to give Cas a better view of his work-in-progress. His pen hovers over the violet, the aster, the borage. “Where do you think the next one should go?”

Cas’s brow furrows. “You’re asking me?”

“It’s your garden,” Dean says with a shrug. “You’ll know best.”

“But I’m not an artist.”

Dean throws him a flat look. “You don’t have to be an artist to have an opinion. I couldn’t give less of a fuck about Vermeer or Picasso, but I sure as hell give a damn about what I put on my own body.” He gestures idly to his heavily tattooed arm with his pen, careful to not draw Cas’s eye too closely. 

Dean should be in the clear with his soulmark; he slapped a large band-aid on so only the ‘vak’ is visible, and doodled over the last two letters with a sharpie earlier that morning in a fit of extra paranoia.

He rambles, “I could put the next Mona Lisa on your arm, but if you don’t like the way it looks, it’s not the right tattoo for you.”

Cas dips his head in acknowledgement. “I’d like a bee here, please,” he says, pointing to a goldenrod stem

“Sure thing,” Dean says as he jots it down. “Do you want to go for a few more?”

Cas eyes the five bees critically. “This is good.”

Dean grins. “Now we’re talking.”

When Dean touches his name on Castiel’s arm for the first time, he almost expects something momentous to happen. A spark, like in the chick flicks Jo makes him watch when they’re drunk enough to admit they like them - deep, deep down. 

But it’s just skin.

At least Cas doesn’t magically acquire mind reading powers and yank his arm away in horror.

Dean allows himself one drag of his gloved thumb along the unmarked skin bearing his name. He gives himself a little mental shake to reset.

He gets through shaving and disinfecting Cas’s arm by running his mouth, giving Cas the full rundown of what he’s doing as he’s doing it. Cas stares and stares, not saying a word, enraptured as if Dean is spilling the secrets of the universe instead of the state sterilization requirements.

“You got any questions?” Dean asks as he straightens and reaches for the stencil. 

“No,” Cas says. He glides a few fingers curiously over his hairless arm.

Dean positions the stencil around Cas’s arm. “You nervous? Sometimes people get nervous before their first one.”

Cas tilts his head. “Were you?”

Dean snorts. “Not exactly.”

“Why not?”

Dean checks the stencil is drying properly, saying as he lifts Cas’s arm, “I was a kid and trying out the whole teenage rebellion thing. I couldn’t wait to get it done.” He gently sets it back down, satisfied.

“What was the design?”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “You want to know?”

Cas gives a one-shouldered shrug. 

Dean pulls aside the neck of his shirt to show off his first tattoo and lets Cas get a good look. “It’s an anti-possession symbol, according to my little brother’s favorite book series.”

“What is the series?”

Dean screws up his face as he tries to remember. He shakes his head. “No clue anymore.”

Cas brow furrows. “You really don’t remember? But it must have meant a lot to you.”

“My brother got a matching one,” Dean says gruffly. “Kid’s got a mind like a steel trap. He’ll definitely know it, and I can check with him if you’re interested.”

“Oh, no,” Cas says quickly, “That is not necessary.” He eyes Dean curiously, his gaze lingering on the band-aid covering Dean’s inner forearm and the colorful tattoo sleeves on both his arms. “Is he also an artist?”

Dean can’t hold back a bark of laughter. Sam is damn lucky Dean loved him, since Sam’s homemade birthday and Christmas cards would’ve made a Hallmark designer weep. “God, no. He’s a lawyer with Mills Hanscum downtown.”

Cas’s brows draw together as he mulls the information over. “Sam Singer?”

Dean blinks, taken aback. “You know him?”

“Only by reputation,” Cas says. “We - my superiors have offered him a position at my firm a few times.”

Dean gives Cas another once-over with this new knowledge. “You’re a lawyer too?”

Cas nods. “At Adler Milton.”

Dean leans back in his seat, surveilling Cas with a cool eye. He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve heard about you guys.” 

Sam had complained to him before about those dicks. From the way Sam tells it, Adler Milton is the Goliath to Mills Hanscum’s David. When the firms go head-to-head, it’s always a headache and heartache for Sam’s team. After all, Sam’s clients are the type who can’t afford Adler Milton’s rates, and while Sam will work his ass off for them, sometimes endless gumption can’t beat cold, hard cash and an endless supply of associates. 

Cas drops his gaze, muttering, “I’m not surprised.”

“You in family law too?”

Cas releases a weighty sigh. “Unfortunately.”

Dean’s stiff posture eases a fraction. “Not your thing?”

Cas shakes his head. “I thought I could help people, but all I seem to do is create more strife and discord.”

“Yeah, well, family can be touchy subject,” Dean says, a little awkwardly. He leans forward to check how the stencil has imprinted on Cas’s skin. Almost done.

“I have come to understand that.” Cas makes to put his head in his hands but stops himself as Dean lays a hand on his wrist in warning. He continues under his breath, “The custody battles alone keep me up at night.”

Dean winces. “I heard from Sam they can be pretty brutal.”

“You have no idea,” Cas says darkly.

Dean gently lifts the stencil off Cas’s arm, leaving only vibrant purple lines in its wake. “We didn’t go through a custody battle, thank fuck. Who knows how much worse that would’ve been.”

Cas’s eyes flash to Dean’s covered soulmark. “You and your partner?”

“Me and my - ? No, dude,” Dean turns his back to toss the used stencil in the trash. “’M talking about me and Sam. We were adopted when I was sixteen by a family friend.”

“But it was a smooth transition?” Cas asks, thankfully refraining from asking about Dean’s parents

Dean shrugs as he swings back around. He moves Cas’s arm into place. “I mean, I was an asshole and Sam was practically mute, but our adoptive dad was one stubborn motherfucker, so it all worked out in the end.”

Cas nods, still looking troubled.

“’S why Sam does what he does,” Dean says because Sam wouldn’t care that Dean is telling this story. Hell, Sam put the whole saga into his cover letter when he applied to work at Mills Hanscum (nearly brought Donna to tears, from the way Sam tells it), and Sam regularly busts it out to get stubborn clients to open up. The sob story plus the puppy dog eyes gets them to start talking in minutes.

Dean - well, it took Dean a lot longer to come to terms with his tragic backstory. And normally he’d need at least one drink in his stomach to spill his guts to this degree, but Cas is his _soulmate._ Maybe if Dean puts himself out there, Cas will too.

* * *

“Okay,” Dean says as he hovers the tattoo machine over Cas’s arm. They’re starting with the outside, and Dean will work his way inwards, where the skin is more sensitive. “You ready?”

“I have a high pain tolerance,” Cas says seriously.

“Haven’t heard that before,” Dean mutters as he lowers the machine to trace the first stem of goldenrod.

Cas’s lips press together in a thin line, but he shows no other outward sign of pain. He breathes slowly out through his nose. “Do people often lie?”

“Sometimes,” Dean says as he wipes away a few dark drips of ink and blood. “I lost count of how many macho men first timers had to cut their sessions short ‘cause they couldn’t handle it. One guy actually _cried.”_ He pauses, considering. “I think he was going through some stuff, though. Like, personal stuff.”

“That does seem rather extreme,” Cas agrees as he peers down interestedly at the flower taking shape on his arm.

“He had a few last minute changes to the design after we’d already started,” Dean continues. “Which I can do - beggars can’t be choosers - but it’s not how I like to work.”

“I won’t be making any changes.”

Dean opens his mouth to keep going with Ed’s story, but he hesitates at Cas’s calm assurance. He glances up to meet Cas’s cool blue eyes. “You sure? No changes at all?”

“Yes?” Cas says, head tilting as he studies Dean right back.

Dean swallows and gets with the program. He has a job to do. A job Cas is paying him to do.

It was a stupid thing to ask. Cas came into The Ink Barn to get rid of his soulmark. One question from Dean wasn’t going to do jack.

“How long have you been doing this?” Cas asks.

Dean frowns as he traces the line of a tiny petal. “I’m qualified to tattoo you. Don’t worry.”

Cas shakes his head. “You misunderstand me. I don’t doubt you are legally equipped for your job. I meant...” He looks down to his lap, brow furrowing. “I was only trying to make conversation.”

“You don’t have to,” Dean says brusquely. “You can read something on your phone or whatever.”

“No - I want to.”

Dean turns Cas’s arm so he can get to the edge of a leaf. “Don’t feel you have to just ‘cause I’m here.” 

“If you’d rather not talk, I feel very comfortable in long stretches of silence,” Cas says, all businesslike. “But I’ve been told other people don’t like it.”

“I’m fine either way,” Dean says as his eyes briefly flicker up to Cas’s. “You’re the one paying to be here. Seems only fair you get to call the shots.”

Cas’s lips press together briefly. “I’d like to keep talking,” he says firmly. Blue eyes flicker over Dean’s face. “I - I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

Dean musters up a smile. It only feels a little forced. “I’m one of a kind, sweetheart. What do you want to know?”

Cas asks him a few idle questions: how he got into tattooing in the first place (always been a doodler, and then Bobby introduced him to Pam); what tattoo he’s most proud of (a detailed pirate ship on Benny’s leg); if he ever tattooed himself (he has).

He pushes up his sleeves to show Cas his arms.

His right arm is adorned with death omens from various cultures: corpse lights and white butterflies, a woman in white, and a banshee stand out starkly from a jet-black background. His left arm depicts the opposite, beginning with the Tree of Life on his bicep. An ouroboros surrounds his wrist, and in between flies a fire-bright phoenix. Nestled in between the feathers, of course, is Castiel’s name - hidden beneath a band-aid.

After about fifty minutes, Dean sits up straighter, and something in his back pops. He lets out a loud sigh. “Do you need a break? The next section is going to hurt more.” He touches Cas’s inner forearm briefly, not lingering too long on his own name.

“Would you like a break?” Cas asks, shifting around in the chair.

Dean makes a face. “Maybe a little breather would do us both some good. I can get you a water or something, too.”

“Thank you,” Cas says, nodding.

Dean gets up. “Be back in a minute,” he says. He escapes to the back room, where Pam has her office and a minifridge of water and, occasionally, beer. He grabs a water, and his hand only hovers over the cans for a moment before he shuts the fridge with a decisive thud.

He breathes slowly in and out for a few moments. 

He can do this. He can’t lose it now. They have two more sessions to go, three at most. 

Dean returns to his station to find Cas chatting with Jo over the divider.

“Come ‘round to the Roadhouse for a burger,” she is saying. “They’re the best ones in South Dakota. I’ll even throw in a free side of fries if you stop by.”

“Stop bothering my client, Jo,” Dean says as he sits down in his chair and hands the water bottle to Cas. “But, she’s also right. The burger kicks ass.”

Cas dips his head in acknowledgement. “Burgers are my favorite.”

“It’s a date,” Jo says. She slaps her hand down on the divider decisively. “Catch ya later-”

“What? You’re going on a date?” Dean cuts in, his heart ratcheting up double-time in his chest.

“No?” Jo looks like Dean suggested they strip and run down the street naked. A little disgusted, and mostly confused. “It’s just a saying.”

“Right, right,” Dean says quickly, as he turns his back on the pair of them and makes sure his station is exactly as he left it - not that he expected Cas to mess around with his stuff and sabotage his own tattoo.

Fuck this soulmate thing. Why couldn’t he be like Jo, who has no mark on her arm and is as happy as a pig in shit? Instead, Dean has a mark that fucks with his head and makes him jump to stupid-ass conclusions when he should know better.

“If I get out of work on time on Friday, I’ll stop by,” Cas promises.

“We’re a bar,” Jo says, her face incredulous, “The Roadhouse is open until two in the morning.”

Cas brightens. “In that case, expect me sometime between nine and ten.”

“At night?” Dean asks like an idiot. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Jo disappear to her station.

Cas sags slightly. “I tend to work long hours.”

Dean gets it. Sam sometimes cancels or pushes back plans because of work, especially before big cases. 

“Ready to go again?” Dean asks, hands hovering over Cas’s arm to put him back in position.

Cas wiggles a little in his chair. “Ready.”

Dean starts up the tattoo machine. “How’s the pain so far?”

“Manageable.”

Dean hums, biting his lip as he lowers the machine to start on the leaf covering most of the _Dean_ inked on Cas’s arm. He searches for something to talk about, anything to distract him, but the only possibilities running through his mind are some version of _why are you doing this._

“Is everything okay?” Cas asks, and Dean jumps.

Dean shakes his head. Focus, goddammit. He has a job to do. He tells Cas, “Yeah, yeah, of course.” 

Cas doesn’t look convinced. 

The buzzing of the machine is impossibly loud as Dean sets the needle just above Cas’s soulmark. Still, he can’t bring himself to touch the skin.

“Are you okay?” Cas tries again, his blue eyes boring into Dean’s face with a single-minded determination Dean hasn’t seen since the last time he watched Sam stare down a Chipotle menu. “Something is wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Cas’s mouth purses. “I am regularly surrounded by lawyers. I know a lie when I hear one.” Dean stays silent. “It’s the soulmark, isn’t it?”

Dean’s expression darkens. “It’s fine.”

“You seem… distressed.”

 _“You_ seem distressed,” Dean shoots back automatically.

Cas stares at him blankly.

Dean sighs. He’s not making any sense. “Look, I gotta know. Why do you want to cover it up?”

Cas’s face goes carefully blank. “That’s a very personal question.”

“Humor me,” Dean says, his irritation creeping in. “We’re never going to see each other again after your art is done. What’s the harm?”

Cas’s brows furrow as he considers Dean’s words. He says eventually, “I work divorce cases.”

Yes, Dean remembers. He nods for Cas to continue.

“More than three-fourths of the couples that need my services are soulmates.”

Dean makes a face. “And that’s put you off the whole system?” He won’t say it out loud, but, seriously, what did Cas expect, when he took that job? Sammy works the same gig, but Dean doesn’t see him kicking Eileen to the curb.

Cas exhales a long sigh. “It made me wary of blindly trusting the name on my arm, but ultimately no.”

Dean waits, his anxiety building.

“It was my brother’s divorce that made me do this.”

Dean blinks. “Claire’s parents?” At Cas’s nod, he asks, “Is that why she’s been acting like someone pissed in her cereal for the past month?”

Cas bites his lip. “She’s always been a… moody teenager, but it’s gotten worse.”

“Christ,” Dean casts a quick look in the direction of the welcome desk but he can’t see her telltale flash of blonde from this angle. “No wonder.”

Cas looks down at his arm. “Jimmy and Amelia are soulmates. They had nearly two decades of happiness together, and now they talk as if none of it was worth it.”

Dean stares at his name too. “And now you think it’s not worth it either.”

Cas shakes his head. “I have my job for an income, my garden for relaxation, my family for socialization. I don’t need anything else in my life. Especially a person who could jeopardize all that.”

Dean swallows as his last hope goes up in smoke. “Guess not,” he mutters as he finally pushes the needle into Cas’s skin.


	2. Gladiolus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck Dean six ways to Sunday, that’s Castiel Novak walking across the Roadhouse floor towards the bar, headed straight for him. Like the stuff out of Dean’s worst nightmares or his best daydreams.
> 
> Dean needs that next drink, stat.

Dean calls Sam after he’s three-ish drinks in, buzzed enough to start the conversation, sober enough to carry it. 

“Hey,” Dean says as Sam answers.

“What’s up?” Sam asks, and, shit, he sounds distracted.

“Bad time?” Dean asks, forcing lightness into his tone.

There’s a a thump and a muffled apology to someone on Sam’s end of the line. “Dammit, what’d you say? I’m in the grocery store. Elieen’s craving Oreos but didn’t tell me what kind, and there are like _ten_ of them here. Is this what the snack aisle is usually like?”

“Get her Double Stuf,” Dean advises. “Can’t go wrong with Double Stuf.”

“There are two kinds of those!”

Dean twirls around his empty beer bottle in his hands. “Then get both, bitch. It’s not like you’re too broke to afford _Oreos,_ man.” 

“Right, right,” Sam says. “So get this, you wouldn’t _believe_ what happened with my client the other day-”

Dean lets his brother ramble on about the bullshit his clients put him through and give him a non-Oreo-related update on Eileen’s pregnancy. Sam talks his ear off all though shopping, even letting Dean eavesdrop on his polite smalltalk with the cashier from his pocket.

“So that’s about it,” Sam says. Dean hears his car door slam shut. “What’s up with you?”

Dean, who sobered up to unacceptable levels right around the time Sam was debating Cheerios vs shredded wheat (non-frosted, of course), hops up from where he’s slumped on the couch. “Nothing,” he says to buy time.

“Uh huh.”

Dean pops open the cap on his fourth beer bottle. 

“Are you drinking?” Sam asks disapprovingly.

“What, a man can’t drink in his own apartment on his own time?”

“How many have you had?”

Dean tips back the bottle, and the cool, hoppy fizz down his gullet calms him like no other. “Two,” he lies.

“Why are you drinking alone in your apartment?”

Dean frowns. “What’s this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

“No, just normal concern. What’s going on?” Sam asks pointedly. “We have plans for this weekend. You would’ve waited to catch up until then.”

“Don’t go all lawyer on me-”

“Then don’t act so suspicious-”

“I met my soulmate,” Dean blurts. 

“Seriously?” Sam gasps. He sounds one talking racoon away from swooning like a Disney princess. “You found him?”

Dean empties nearly a third of his beer down his throat. “He showed up at The Ink Barn to get a tattoo,” Dean says as he scrubs his hand down his face. 

“Is he already inked?” Sam asks. He doesn’t wait for a response before he says with a horrible sincerity, “You’re probably perfect for each other.”

“No, he’s not inked,” Dean says, his mouth dry despite the decent amount of booze in his stomach. “Well, he is now, I guess.”

“Aw, you got to be his first, how cute,” Sam laughs. 

Dean swallows down another gulp. “He’s getting a cover up.”

“Wait,” and Dean can practically see the genius wheels in his brother’s brain turning, “a cover up for his soulmark?” At Dean’s silence, Sam whistles. “Dude works fast.”

“What?”

“I mean, I guess it’s sweet,” Sam says as Dean scrambles to catch up with Sam’s thought process. “Now you’ve connected, he wants to keep your name between you two.”

Maybe Sam is a moron after all.

“He doesn’t know it’s my name,” Dean says.

“Huh?”

“The name on his arm says _Winchester,_ _”_ he says with a grimace Sam can’t see. “Everyone knows me as Singer.”

“Oh,” Sam says, and Dean doesn't know what to make of that at all. “But you told him, right?"

Dean doesn’t answer.

Sam makes a choked noise. “You have to tell him.”

“I don’t have to do shit,” Dean says sharply.

“Dean-”

“He was pretty sure he didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“He told me, ‘I don’t need anyone else in my life’ when I asked.”

Sam doesn’t have any words for that. Eventually, he says, his voice deadly serious, “I’m coming over.”

“What?” Dean yelps. “Dude, don’t. Eileen needs her Oreos.”

“Eileen is four months pregnant,” Sam retorts, “not an invalid. If she really wants them, she can get them herself. Worst comes to worst, we’ll have too many Oreos in the house.”

“What a nightmare.”

Sam snorts a laugh. “I’ll be there in ten. And don’t you dare leave me hanging outside your building ‘cause you want to mope alone. I have Oreos.”

Dean grimaces at the phone. If he doesn’t listen to Sam and leaves him outside in the cold, Sam’ll turn right back around, drive to his place, give Eileen her Oreos, pick up the spare key to Dean’s place, and let himself in. And Dean would be in the exact scenario he’s in now, except with none of Eileen’s Oreos and a pissed off brother.

“I don’t _mope,”_ Dean says belatedly.

“Oh right, you brood. Like Batman.”

“Damn straight.”

* * *

Sam makes a face over the rim of his half-empty bottle of beer. “I think I remember him. Dark hair? Short-ish?”

“Dude, everyone’s short compared to you,” Dean retorts as he fiddles with the glass of water Sam made him drink. He digs into the takeout lo mein Sam got delivered ten minutes ago. “He’s pretty much my height.”

“Blue eyes? Intense kind of guy?”

“That’s him.”

Sam snaps his fingers. “He represented Mr. Sunder!”

Dean stares at him blankly.

Sam scowls. “Remember that divorce case with Lily Sunder? They had a little kid, May. She wasn’t even his biological kid, but Mr. Sunder wanted custody to get back at Lily for divorcing him.”

“Wait - was that the case with the hot Amish boyfriend?”

It was Sam’s biggest case last year. They got a write up and photos in the local paper, or else Dean wouldn’t be able to pick the hot boyfriend out of a crowd.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Probably. Lily did have a boyfriend in the picture who looked after May. He had long hair and a beard - I don’t think he was Amish, though.”

Dean waves the comment off. “Potato, po-tah-to.”

“Anyway, Lily got full custody but had to pay a shit-ton of money to Mr. Sunder.” Sam picks up a dumpling and inspects it like it’s the Rosetta Stone, asking, “Are you really not going to tell your soulmate?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s gonna get his color done with another artist if he finds out?”

“Come on,” Sam says, nibbling on the doughy edge. “Don’t pretend this has anything to do with money.” He bites into the dumpling with relish.

“Maybe not,” Dean hedges. “But why rock the boat? If I tell him, it’s gonna get all awkward.”

“You don’t do awkward,” Sam says frankly. Which, he has a point. Dean got where he was by being a charming son of a bitch. “You’re telling me, you don’t think you could convince him?”

“To do what?” Dean snorts. “Accept me or some bullshit?”

“Convince him to judge you as more than a name on his arm,” Sam says patiently. “I’m sure if he gets to know you-”

“He’s already spent two hours and change with me. We talked practically the whole time.”

Sam scoffs, “That’s not enough. My flight with Eileen was almost four hours.”

Dean digs around for the last piece of shredded beef at the bottom of the carton. “For him it is.”

“I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”

 _“I_ think you should drop it.”

“Dean,” Sam says seriously, and Dean’s stomach clenches at the look on Sam’s face. “I know how much you were looking forward to meeting your soulmate. You should tell him.”

“Christ.” Dean plucks Sam’s beer out of his lax fingers and takes a large gulp.

Scowling, Sam snatches it back.

Dean throws up his hands. “I’m trying to respect his boundaries here, man! You don’t wanna be that dude asking a girl out who’s obviously not into him.”

“But maybe he is into you!” Sam spears another dumpling. “Maybe he just doesn’t know it yet.”

“All signs point to no,” Dean says disdainfully. “Do not pass go, do not collect $200.”

Sam’s phone pings with a text. “Eileen,” he says, peering at the screen lighting up with a new text. “She gives her best and says she’s looking forward to catching up on Friday.”

“You’re gonna tell her, aren’t you?” Dean says, resigned.

Sam winces. “I already told her.” 

“Of course you did.”

“She wanted an explanation for the Oreos!” Sam points an accusatory dumpling in Dean’s face. “Come on, it’s not like you haven’t told Jo already.”

“I haven’t,” Dean says, almost offended on Sam’s behalf.

“You told me before her?” Sam says, looking surprised.

“Well, yeah,” Dean says, looking away. “You’re my brother.”

“I know that,” Sam says as his eyes go distant, “But I still thought…”

Dean scrapes the last oily noodles of lo mein into a pile and dumps them into his mouth. 

Dean kind of gets it. As his colleague, he sees Jo more often. He goes on more yearly trips with her - Motor City Tattoo Expo, Middle of the Map Tattoo Convention, and, memorably, the Sweetwater Inkfest with Donna - while Sam’s gotten steadily busier, building his career and getting serious with Eileen. Now they have a _baby_ coming. And Dean’s usually pretty content to paddle around in a river in Egypt like it’s his personal wave pool, but at some point, something had to give.

Sam’s always had bigger things going for him than having an awesome big brother, and Dean had to wise up before he got left in the dust.

“We don’t talk like we used to,” Sam finishes lamely.

Dean frowns. “I tell you stuff.”

“Uh huh.” Sam leans back in his seat and surveils Dean with a cool eye.

“I do,” Dean insists, “You’re just better at the touchy-feely crap, and I haven’t had a lot going on there lately.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “You always have feelings, Dean, even when you pretend not to.”

“Fake news.”

Sam kicks him in the ankle. “So that’s all I am now?” he asks, keeping his tone light as his expression turns serious. “The guy you go to when getting drunk with Jo and watching Lifetime movies doesn’t cut it?”

“How do you know about that?” Dean demands, betrayed.

“Jo told me.”

Dean swears under his breath. “I’m gonna put Nair in her shampoo.”

Sam’s face falls. He quickly picks up his beer and drains the rest of it, saying, “It’s getting late. I should head back to Eileen.” He gets to his feet.

“Yeah,” Dean waves him off. “Thanks for stopping by.”

Sam gives him a long look, brow furrowed. He shakes his head. “Thanks for not leaving me outside to freeze.”

Dean smiles up at him, but it doesn't feel right. “What are big brothers for?”

* * *

Dean spends the next three weeks pretending _Castiel Novak_ doesn’t exist. He doesn’t tell Jo about his connection to Castiel. He shuts down Sam every time he so much as hints at any soulmate bullshit. 

Jo sends him worried looks at his attitude, and Dean can practically see the epic bitchfaces Sam is sending through his phone.

The night before his next appointment with Cas, he heads to the Roadhouse. He can drink there undisturbed, and Benny will make sure he’ll get home safe, whatever state he’s in.

When he walks through the doors, the comfortingly familiar smell of fried food and beer hits him first. It’s reasonably crowded for prime dinner hour on a Thursday night. Most of the tables are taken, so Benny waves him over from behind the bar. It’s not like the Roadhouse has a host or hostess, so Dean seats himself, as he’s always done. He heads to a free barstool, and Benny provides him with a glass of water before his ass hits the seat.

“How’re you doin’, brother?” Benny asks as he, unprompted, pours out a finger of whiskey to go with the water. 

Dean would kiss him if Andrea wouldn’t kick his ass to hell and back for it.

“Been better,” Dean sighs as he raises his glass and toasts Benny. He takes a sip, shivering at the light burn down his throat. “Thanks.”

“You look like you need it,” Benny says critically. “Everything okay with Sam?”

“Yeah.”

Benny purses his lips. “And work?”

Wary, Dean nods and tosses back more of his whiskey. 

“Your old man doin’ well?”

Dean sets the glass down with a dull thunk. “What’s with the third degree? Despite what most people think, standing behind that bar doesn’t make you a shrink.”

“Shit, I’m no shrink,” Benny says with a little laugh. “But I am your friend.”

Dean glowers over the rim of his drink.

“And a few little birdies told me you’ve been acting awful strange lately.”

“Snitches, more like,” Dean grumbles.

Benny braces both his elbows on the bar, his expression open and inviting. “You ever heard, _a burden shared is a burden halved?”_

Dean scowls, saying slowly, “I have,” because he can’t see a way of getting out of this conversation. Son of a bitch.

Benny’s eyebrows rise. “And you’re still buttoned up tighter than a nun in church?”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Benny sighs. “I can keep a secret, you know.”

“So it’s everyone else who can’t?” Dean asks sourly.

“I don’t think it’s much of a secret if you avoid Charlie’s movie night and skip poker with Garth two weeks in a row,” Benny says mildly.

Dean tips his drink all the way back. “So I wasn’t feeling real sociable for the past few weeks. It’s not a crime.”

“No,” Benny drawls, “but it is unusual.”

Dean shrugs as he raises his empty glass. “Another one?”

“Dean-”

_“Dean?”_

The hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand on end at the sound of his name in _that_ voice. He spins around on his stool, slack-jawed. “Cas?”

And fuck Dean six ways to Sunday, Castiel Novak is walking across the Roadhouse floor towards the bar, headed straight for him. Like the stuff out of his worst nightmares or his best daydreams.

Dean needs that next drink, stat.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Cas says as he takes the next seat over. He settles in for the evening, draping his trench coat across his lap. A part of Dean quietly dies inside.

“Your usual?” Benny asks.

“Yes, please.”

“Yeah, of cour-” Dean starts before he breaks off, staring at Cas.

Into the silence, Benny says, “That'll be two cheeseburgers.” He raps his knuckles on the bar once. “Be out in ten.”

Dean watches him disappear into the kitchen, his mouth agape.

“How are you doing?” Cas asks.

“Fine,” Dean says automatically. He drops his gaze to the bartop. “You?”

“I am well,” Cas says tentatively. “I’m looking forward to our session tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Dean says, raising his head.

Work - Dean can talk about work. He can compartmentalize. Cas is just another client, and Dean can make small talk with a client. It’s practically the third most important skill in tattooing, apart from the artistic eye and pretending to want to know why arrows are _just so important_ to them _._

Dean thumps his hand on the bar. “Show me the goods, then!”

Cas starts. “Excuse me?”

Dean grins. “Roll up the sleeve. How’s it healing?”

“Oh.” Cas complies and lays his arm across the bar for Dean’s inspection.

“Looking good,” Dean whistles as he pokes the skin. It’s healed over nicely, and the swelling has entirely gone down. His fingers come away clean, not that he had been expecting Cas to still be leaking ink after three weeks. “Any pain?”

“It was itchy at first,” Cas admits.

“That’s normal,” Dean assures. “It’ll probably be itchy after the next round too.”

Cas musters up a small smile. “That’s what I expected.”

Dean tuts as he turns Cas’s arm over to inspect the other side. “How bad was the leakage?”

Cas makes a face. “Worse than I had planned for.”

“I told you to wrap it up.” Dean reaches over to take a swig of water. He needs to stop touching Cas.

“It bled through two layers of bandaging.” Cas shakes his head. “I have no idea what my client must have thought.”

“That they have a cool lawyer with tattoos?” Dean suggests.

Cas’s lip curls. “I hardly think one tattoo is enough to make me ‘cool’,” he says, with finger-quotes.

Dean gapes as he holds back the correction on the tip of his tongue. But fuck it - it doesn’t matter if Cas gets offended. Dean can say whatever the hell he wants, it’s a free country, and what’s Cas gonna do, reject him twice? So Dean says bluntly, “Dude, nobody does air quotes anymore.”

But instead of getting offended, Cas chuckles ruefully. “Well, that just proves my point, doesn’t it?”

Despite himself, Dean laughs. “Cool is overrated.”

Cas smiles in return, and oh no.

Where the hell is Benny? They blew through shop talk at lighting speed. He’s gonna need another drink to make it through a regular conversation.

“But you’re-” Cas starts before he breaks off.

“What?” Dean tenses, fingers tapping against the sides of his water glass.

“Cool,” Cas says frankly.

Dean nearly chokes on his next sip. “What?”

Cas tilts his head. “You don’t think so?”

Dean clamps his mouth shut before he can blurt out how wrong Cas is. Objectively, Dean’s not so drunk to forget how he comes across. He’s covered in awesome ink. He wears a signature leather jacket. He’s a charming son of a bitch when he wants to be.

He’s dialed it back for Cas, of course, since putting in the effort is a waste where Cas is concerned. But for him to outright say it like that…

Well.

Cas may not want him _like that,_ but at least he thinks Dean is cool. That’s gotta count for something.

Not that Dean should care what Cas thinks about him at all. Fat lot of good it does him.

Dean’s cheeks heat at the compliment. “I - thanks,” he mutters under his breath. 

“I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“No,” Dean says quickly, “you didn’t - but nobody out and says and that sort of thing, you know?”

“People should,” Cas says. “If I’ve learned anything practicing law, it’s that more people should tell the truth.”

“Yeah, but sometimes…” Dean drifts off as he searches for the right words, “it’s hard.” He squirms uncomfortably in his seat, leaning over the bar to see where the hell Benny had gone. Dean’s (usually) a paying customer, after all. Benny can’t do this to customers. 

Maybe this is payback for last month when Dean got drunk and texted Andrea that he’d be late to her surprise party.

Cas eyes him critically. “You don’t seem like the kind of man who hides behind any pretenses.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dean mutters.

“I mean, we all have our white lies and truth bending to get through the day,” Cas waves his protests away, “But from what I’ve seen, you’re a very genuine man, Dean.”

Dean wants to die. “Thanks,” he repeats in a low voice, “but I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s the point,” Cas says, unbearably earnest. “Our sessions have been such a refreshing change of pace from my billable hours.”

Dean’s eyebrows raise. “You usually hang out with liars and assholes?”

“Lawyers,” Cas says by way of explanation.

Dean snorts. “Hey, my brother’s a lawyer. And he’s fucking awesome.”

Cas flushes. “I - I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult him.”

Dean waves him off. “It’s fine. I heard enough horror stories from him in law school. I get it.”

“Did he graduate from University of South Dakota?”

“Close,” Dean grins, “Stanford University. They’re pretty cutthroat out on the West Coast.” Yeah, he has a genius for a little brother. He’s got the bragging rights. Especially since Sam’s way too humble to make a big deal out of it.

“I wouldn’t know,” Cas says wryly, but he looks impressed. “I’ve never practiced out there.”

“No?”

Cas shakes his head. “I’ve always lived in the Midwest. I was raised in Illinois and went to school in Chicago. I was working in Milwaukee before I took this job.”

Dean asks, “What brought you to Sioux Falls?” even though he really shouldn’t, since getting to know Cas only spells a world of hurt for him once their transactional relationship is over. But, as usual, he can’t help himself. 

“My brother,” Cas explains. “His wife’s family are from South Dakota, so when they had Claire, they moved here.”

“You moved out here for him?” Dean guesses.

“We were very close growing up,” Cas says, “but we drifted apart as we grew older, and I suppose I missed it. I thought physical proximity was a good place to start.”

“Can’t hurt,” Dean says with a smile. “After Sammy graduated from law school, I debated doing the same thing.”

“You decided to stay?”

Dean snorts. “Sam moved here before I could move out there.” He swallows. “He said it was to be near our adoptive dad - he’s getting old - but I know it was mostly for me.”

Thankfully, Benny chooses this moment to exit the kitchen, two deluxe cheeseburgers in hand. Dean has never been more grateful to see his ugly mug.

“Sorry about that, Cas,” Benny says as he sets the plates down with no freaking word to Dean. What a dick. “Water?” Benny asks.

“Yes, please.”

“The Roadhouse has good booze too, if you’re into that,” Dean says as he deliberately nudges his empty whiskey towards Benny.

Benny rolls his eyes but turns to grab the bottle to pour out another one for Dean.

“I’m sure the Roadhouse has an excellent liquor selection,” Cas says without an ounce of sarcasm as Benny walks off to deal with patrons at the other end of the bar. “But my tolerance is very high, and I don’t usually like the taste, so it’s mostly wasted on me.”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “That sucks.” He takes a sip of his whisky. “You ever tried cocktails?”

Cas thinks Dean’s question over. “Not lately.” He sighs. “Most corporate events cater to wine and hard liquor.”

Dean eyes him speculatively before raising a hand to get Benny’s attention.

“If you had to choose, sweet, sour, bitter, or none of the above?” Dean asks quickly as Benny makes his way back over.

“Sweet, I suppose.”

“One Bee’s Knees, Benny,” Dean says. “Don’t skimp on the honey.”

Benny grins. “Coming right up. This is for you, I take it?” he asks Cas. “Dean doesn’t usually go for gin.”

Dean toasts him with his nearly-full glass of whisky.

“I believe so,” Cas says doubtfully.

“If you don’t like it, it’s on my tab,” Dean says, half to Benny, half to Cas.

Cas shakes his head quickly. “There’s no need for that.”

“Sure there is,” Dean says as Benny sets the cocktail down in front of Cas. It’s a light amber color from the honey, and a slight bit cloudy from the freshly squeezed lemon juice. Benny was even feeling fancy and garnished it with a bright yellow lemon peel. Dean continues, “I’m the asshole who’s peer pressuring you into drinking. Least I can do is pick up the bill.”

Cas picks up the glass, eyes it warily, and takes a moderate sip.

“Like it?” Dean asks.

“I do,” Cas says, the faintest note of surprise in his voice. “It’s sweet, but not sugary. Thank you, Benny.”

“No problem, chief,” Benny says warmly. “You guys good?”

Dean waves him off. “I don’t need a babysitter. Go do your job before Ellen catches you chatting with us instead of serving real customers.”

Benny rolls his eyes, but he quickly disappears into the kitchen.

“Thank you, Dean.”

Dean chuckles to himself. “For forcing a drink on you? Please, don’t hold back the praise.”

Cas takes another sip of his Bee’s Knees. “For making me try something new. It’s not something I do very often.”

Dean opens his mouth to voice his sheer disbelief, thinks better of it, and takes a sip of his whiskey instead. Once he’s cool as a fucking cucumber, he asks, “Is that right?”

Cas shakes his head and picks up his burger.

“But you coming to the Roadhouse, that’s new,” Dean adds, trying to keep his tone as level as possible.

Chewing, Cas can’t answer at once. He swallows. “I came here for the first time three weeks ago?” He scrunches up his face as he tries to remember. “Yes, it was two days after our last session. Jo had said the burgers were good, and Benny noticed my arm, and gave me a few good tips on tattoo aftercare.”

“And you kept coming back?”

Cas nods. “Once a week? Sometimes twice. Jo says if I eat ten cheeseburgers, I’ll get the eleventh at a discount.”

Dean barely stifles his laugh in time. “Jo’s such an asshole. There’s no discount. But,” he tacks on, as Cas’s face falls, “let me know when you’re up to lucky number eleven. I’ll make sure Ellen’s down here, and if she gets wind Jo pulled that shit out of her ass, you’ll get that burger for free.”

“No, there’s no need for that. I can afford a full priced burger.” Cas stares down at his meal, the faintest of blushes warming his cheeks.

“It’s not about being able to afford shit,” Dean says, a little sharply. Cas looks like a kicked puppy, for Christ’s sake. “It’s about Jo being a brat.”

“I’m sure she assumed I would get the joke.”

“How?” Dean demands.

Cas says dryly, “If I knew, I wouldn’t have fallen for it, would I?” 

“Look,” Dean leans in closer, “Jo probably took one look at your suit and tie, assumed a whole bunch of shit, and thought she could pull a fast one on you. I’m sure some things are right and some aren’t, but that’s no reason to set you up like that.”

“I suppose,” Cas says doubtfully.

“At least, you’re entitled to a free burger. Most people have to be regulars for years before Jo gives out made-up discounts, or,” Dean adds in a low voice, “tells them about a secret room in the basement, locks them down there for a prank on Halloween, and only lets them out after they promise half their candy haul.”

“That sounds traumatizing,” Cas says, horrified.

“Probably was,” Dean says with a deliberately airy tone. “Ever since, Sam’s never trusted a word out of Jo’s mouth that hasn’t been verified by at least three sources.”

Cas’s face loses some of its tension. “She locked... your brother? In the basement?”

“Eh, he might’ve had it coming,” Deans says as he pops a few fries in his mouth. “Karma’s a bitch.”

“What did he do?”

“Didn’t share any of his candy with _me ,_ after I hauled his ass around the neighborhood trick or treating.”

The corners of Cas’s mouth lift up into a barely-there smile. “Then it sounds less like karma, and more like two scheming teenagers.”

Dean says, grinning, “Jo was twelve.”

“Did you help her?”

“She locked Sam up all on her own,” Dean says, shrugging. “But when I came ‘round looking for him, she said Sam deserved it for leaving her behind on Halloween. Gave me the choice to free him or let him stew down there for another hour.”

Cas chews on a french fry. “Did Sam give her half of his candy?”

Dean’s smile widens. “He sure did.”

“Let me guess,” Cas says dryly, “you somehow wound up with half of her ransom demand when Sam was eventually a free man.”

Dean laughs. “Guess that fancy degree wasn’t wasted on you after all. That’s exactly what happened.”

Cas hides his pleased smile behind his next bite of burger.

* * *

In The Ink Barn the next day, Dean tries and fails not to watch the clock ticking closer to Cas’s appointment. They spent several hours in the Roadhouse the night before, and Dean had almost forgotten the little secret he’s keeping from Cas by the time both of them wised up to the late hour.

Dean double checks his arm. Band-aid, check. He pokes at it, and it’s holding firmly to his skin, covering his soulmark.

If he’s gonna be running into Cas regularly at the Roadhouse, he’ll probably need to invest in an armband. It would be a damn shame to cover up the rest of the ink on his arm, though. He sighs and looks at the clock again.

He’s still got an hour-ish, so he pulls out his phone to kill time.

As he’s about to nail Sam’s ass with QUANTUM - 32 points, bitch - he catches wind of heated whispers at the front of the shop.

Pam’s in the back room. Tessa has her headphones on while cleaning up her station. Both Aaron and Jo are busy with clients. Dean might as well see what’s going on. 

He gets to his feet, stretches, and stops dead in his tracks as he spots a familiar head of dark hair over the station dividers. Cas is out of his usual suit for once and wearing a blue sweater that matches his eyes. He looks like he combed his hair too.

“Claire-” Cas is saying.

“Get out,” Claire spits before Cas can finish. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say to me.”

“Claire!” Dean butts in, walking towards the pair of them. “Hold on.”

“What the hell?” Claire demands, craning her neck around to see him. “This is none of your business.”

“It is if you’re having a personal argument where we work,” Dean says. He crosses his arms across his chest.

Claire scowls and turns back to Cas. “We wouldn’t be having an argument if he just _left.”_

“Claire,” Cas tries again, “this is the only place I can talk to you. You won’t come home. You won’t answer your texts. I’ve tried calling.”

Claire says loudly, “You think after all that, you’d be able to take a hint.”

“Hey,” Dean steps between them, “I think you both need to cool off.” He turns to Cas. “Why don’t you come back in an hour for your actual appointment?” To Claire he says, “Take a walk or something. I can man the desk for ten minutes.”

Cas blinks at him. Claire doesn’t bother to hide her snort of laughter.

“I don’t have an appointment,” Cas says blankly.

“Yeah, you do,” Dean says. He pulls out his phone to check the time, not that he actually needs to. “In an hour.”

Cas frowns.

“Dude,” Dean squints at him, “We talked about it last night. You didn’t have _that_ much to drink.”

“Last night?” Cas echoes.

Claire huffs an exasperated breath. “Dean, you know you’re talking to my dad, right?”

Dean takes an embarrassingly long time to get it.

“Castiel did mention he was getting a tattoo a few weeks ago,” Cas - no, Claire’s dad says.

“Dean’s the artist working on him,” Claire says.

“Dean?” he repeats, intrigued. _“Dean_ as in--”

“Dean Singer,” Dean says as he sticks out his hand. Might as well introduce himself properly, get rid of any more misunderstandings. 

“Oh,” Claire’s dad says as they shake. “Jimmy Novak.”

“Great, you’ve met,” Claire says sourly. “Now, will you _go?”_

“Claire-”

“Man, this is not the place for family reunions,” Dean says, gesturing around The Ink Barn. “If you want to talk to Claire, we close up at six.”

Jimmy sighs. “Fine,” he says shortly, “But you need to come home tonight, Claire.”

Claire just scowls. 

Defeated, Jimmy leaves.

Dean wipes a hand down his face as the door closes. “You could’ve mentioned earlier that Cas has a twin.”

“And miss that face?” Claire asks with a smirk.

“Shut up.”

Claire taps a few keys on the computer.

“Look,” Dean says because he can’t help himself. Family has always been his weak spot. “You should talk to your dad.”

“And you should mind your own business,” Claire says without looking up from the screen.

Dean leans over the desk, a little too far into her space so he can’t ignore him. “I know things are rough, but they’re not gonna get better if you keep shutting him out.”

“Who says I want things to get better? Maybe my dad’s a sack of shit, and I’m better off without him.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve now spent a decent chunk of time with your uncle,” Dean tells her, “Cas thinks he’s worth more than the cold shoulder.”

“Good for Uncle Cas,” Claire says bitterly. “But he’s wrong.”

“Claire,” Dean says, and something in his tone makes her look up at him. Her face is still guarded. Beneath the eyeliner, her eyes are wary. But she’s listening, and that’s all the opening Dean needs. “Speaking as someone who had a… complicated relationship with his late dad, you don’t want to shut him out. I’m not saying you have to like him,” he says as Claire opens her mouth, “It’s not a dad’s job to be liked. It’s his job to raise you right, and from what I’ve seen, he’s done a damn good job so far.”

Claire’s eyebrows rise. “You think so?”

“Sure do,” Dean says easily. “You got a good head on your shoulders. For one, you have a job instead of slumming it over the summer like the walk-ins from last week.”

Claire scowls at the memory. It was good for The Ink Barn’s bottom line, but neither Tessa nor Dean was super thrilled at having a half dozen tipsy Augies stumble in an hour before closing, all wanting matching tattoos. It took them twenty minutes to settle on a design. At least they went for flash ink instead of custom.

“Anyway,” Dean finishes, “I’m sure he’s doing his best.”

“Is he?” Claire asks, her voice dry as dust. “Is that why he’s leaving Mom?”

Dean frowns. “Are you sure you have the whole story? Maybe you want to sort that out with him in person.”

“Maybe,” Claire echoes, but there’s a pensive note there.

“Anyway,” Dean says before Claire can come back to herself and call him names, “I gotta get back. But think about what I said, okay?”

“Sure thing, Travolta.”

Dammit.

* * *

Dean nearly does a double-take as Cas knocks on the wall of his divider. “Dean?”

“Hey,” Dean says as he pockets his phone. It’s definitely Cas though, from the messy hair to the suit-and-tie combo. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Cas blinks. “We have an appointment.”

Dean grins and gestures for him to take a seat. “Yeah, we do. Hop on.” He snaps on a pair of new gloves as Cas rolls his sleeve up to his bicep. It gives Dean ample room to work (good) and shows off Cas’s arms, corded with muscle from what must be hardcore gardening (bad). “I thought you’d come in an hour early, but, turns out, I met your brother.”

“Jimmy was here?”

“He was trying to talk to Claire.”

Cas settles down into the seat. “Was he successful?”

Dean makes a face. “Not really.”

Cas purses his lips as he sets his arm down and waits for Dean to get his stuff together.

As he inserts the needle into the tattoo machine, Dean says, “You didn’t mention he was your identical twin.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant,” Cas says honestly. He squints over at Dean, holding the machine aloft. “Was it?”

“I thought he was you, at first.”

“A common mistake,” Cas says with a little smile.

“Now I get why you said you were close growing up.” Dean doesn’t turn on the tattoo machine yet and lets it sit loose in his hand. “Normally, I’d look closer at what I’m working with, see how you’re healing up, but I got a pretty good idea last night, so I’m good diving straight in if you are.”

Cas tilts his arm up. “I am ready.”

“Awesome,” Dean says. Over the buzzing, he asks, “So how’ve you been?”

“Since last night?” Cas asks wryly.

“Yup.”

Cas sighs. “Work has been… difficult.”

“More messy divorces?”

Cas sits back and closes his eyes. “Office politics, actually.”

“Sounds fun.”

Cas winces as Dean starts on a petal, close to his inner forearm. “All I want to do is hide out in my garden. It’s been doing excellently this summer. I’ve run out of colleagues to gift flowers to.” He cracks open his eyes to peer around. “Can you have flowers here? Is that sanitary?”

Dean purses his lips. “Probably not at our individual stations. But if you want, I’m sure we can put some at the welcome desk.”

Cas shuts his eyes again. “I’ll bring some by next week.”

“And, uh, well,” Dean says, going a bit pink, and thank god Cas isn’t looking at him, “I wouldn’t mind taking some to my place. It’s been a while since I had flowers, and I could always use more still life practice.” He chuckles. “It’s not like anyone’s looking for me to ink an artistic draping of socks anywhere.”

“I would love to give you some of my flowers,” Cas says earnestly. “Any species in particular?”

“Whatever, man,” Dean says as he wipes away excess ink. “It’s your garden. As long as no bees hitch a ride, it’s all the same to me.”

“If you keep a window open, they’ll likely be able to find their way back to the hive. Please don’t kill them, if they get trapped in your house.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean assures him. “As for your office situation, could you take some time off? Whenever I need a break, I head up to my old man’s hunting cabin. Hours away from the city. Nothin’ but me and nature up there.”

Cas is shaking his head before Dean even finishes speaking. “I haven’t taken a real vacation in two years.”

“Jesus Christ, _why?”_

Cas’s mouth hardens. “Sick leave is tolerated in times of mortal peril. Vacation is frowned upon.”

“That sucks,” Dean says with feeling.

“Welcome to the world of cutthroat law firms.”

“Sucks, dude,” Dean repeats. “If I had to come in here five days a week, 52 weeks a year, I’d go all Carrie up in here before Labor Day. And I _like_ my job.”

Cas squints at him. “Carrie?”

Dean’s mouth doesn’t fall open, but it’s a near thing. “You’ve never heard of Carrie?” He pokes at Cas’s skin - a little red and swollen, but not enough to distort his work surface. He continues, “It’s about a girl with powers. At the end, she gets covered in pig’s blood as a prank at prom and sets the whole place on fire and kills everyone.”

After a beat, Cas says, “I suppose Jo is lucky Sam doesn’t have magic powers.”

Dean laughs. “Probably. He was spitting mad when she finally let him out of the basement.”

Cas eyes the divider separating Dean’s station from Jo’s. “But they get along now?”

“’Course,” Dean says easily. “She’s like the little sister neither of us wanted.”

“I don’t have any sisters.”

“It's just you and Jimmy?” Dean asks.

Cas nods.

“Yeah, I get that,” Dean says, not meeting Cas’s eyes as he swaps out dark green ink for a lighter shade. “When we settled down at Bobby’s, it took a while to get used to having _people_ around, you know? It’d been only me, Sam, and Dad for so long. But Bobby would’ve probably died of scurvy if Ellen didn’t make him come ‘round the Roadhouse at least once a week, and Jo hung out with us a lot since she _had a ginormous crush on me for years,”_ he says, raising his voice to carrying levels.

“Screw you, Dean!” Jo calls without missing a beat.

“She did?” Cas asks, surprised.

Dean shakes his head, saying at a normal volume, “She thought she did for a while. Before she figured herself out.”

Cas’s brow furrows in confusion. “Does she prefer women?”

“No one, actually,” Dean says, and he’s had enough drunk chick flick moments with Jo (usually with actual chick flicks playing in the background) to know she doesn’t care about people knowing her sexality. “According to her, when we were kids, she thought I was awesome - which, duh - and wanted to _be_ like me, but didn’t _like_ me. Like that.”

“Right,” Cas says, and Dean can tell by the still-furrowed forehead he doesn’t get it.

But before Dean can set Cas straight, Jo herself pops up from behind the divider. “Gossiping about me, Dean?”

“What can I say.” Dean straightens to get a good look at her. Her wavy blonde hair is pulled up in a messy bun to keep it out of her face, and she’s wearing a plain black tank top. “Your old crush on me was _adorable.”_

Jo scowls. “It wasn’t a crush, and you know it,” she dismisses.

“Oh yeah?” Dean raises his eyebrows. “Then what would you call it?”

Jo lets out an explosive sigh, and Dean grins because he’s got her good and cornered. Nose wrinkling in disgust, she mutters under her breath, “A bad case of hero worship.”

Dean snorts.

“It was before I realized what an asshole you are,” Jo says quickly.

Dean blows her a kiss, and Jo sticks out her tongue as she flips her middle finger up.

Cas watches the two of them, fascinated. 

“She got over it - _apparently,”_ Dean says the last word in a loud stage whisper to Cas, “just in time to follow me here to The Barn.”

“Hey,” Jo says as she points an accusatory finger at him, “You wouldn’t have gotten this job if it wasn’t for me.”

“If it wasn’t for _Bobby,”_ Dean corrects.

“And how did Bobby and Pam meet?” Jo asks, eyebrows raised.

“You mean the time you got the shittiest tattoo on the planet and went to Bobby to fix it because your mom would’ve tanned your hide?” Dean asks, eyebrows raised. 

“Yup,” Jo says, entirely unrepentant.

To Cas, Dean explains, “Bobby knew squat about tattoos, so he took her to the first legit parlor he saw in the Yellow Pages. Delinquent Jo, here, did inventory at the Singer Salvage for the whole summer to make it up to him.”

Jo shrugs. “I got to hang with you and Sam all summer instead of Mom. Win-win, far as I could tell.”

Cas asks her, “Your mother disapproves of tattoos?”

“Not anymore, obviously,” Jo says, like Ellen didn’t ban Jo from going to her Junior Prom as punishment.

(Sam snuck her in for a good forty-five minutes before Ellen dragged them both back to the Roadhouse by their ears. She made them clean glasses for the rest of the night.)

“When Dean got his first tattoo, he wouldn’t shut up about it,” Jo tells Cas, “Mom knew he was a good kid - always looking after Sam, working, keeping his nose clean for the most part, you know. So she came around by his third one.”

Cas turns to a red-faced Dean for verification. 

“Shut up, Jo,” is Dean’s brilliant comeback.

“Fine,” she tells him before turning to Cas, “but if you want something geometric or blackwork for your next one, hit me up. Dean couldn’t ink a straight line if his life depended on it.”

“Hey!” Dean glares. “Are you poaching my client _while I’m working on him?”_

“Just sayin’.” Jo holds her hands up in the air. “Might be a nice contrast to the color you’re getting now.”

“Scram,” Dean waves her off with the hand not holding the tattoo machine, “You’re clearly bad for business.”

“Love you too, Dean,” Jo says sweetly before she ducks back to her own station.

Cas blinks up at him. “I understand now how she could lock your brother in a basement.”

Dean laughs. “I know, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up on Friday!


	3. Jonquil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean catches up with Cas regularly at the Roadhouse over a pair of cheeseburgers and under Benny’s knowing eye. Cas complains about his job, and Dean doesn’t tell him he’s his soulmate.

Dean runs into Cas a few times a week at the Roadhouse. If he lingers at the bar for an hour or two before ordering dinner, Cas will usually turn up, rumpled and sporting a fierce scowl that melts off his face as soon as he steps through the door. 

About two weeks after their second session, Cas arrives at the Roadhouse carrying a PCP bucket full of flowers. Dean, Cas, and Jo spend the next forty-five minutes splitting it into little table-sized bundles. Well, Cas and Dean do the divvying - Jo supervises while welding a pilfered bottle of Jack.

Benny calls Sam to pick Dean up around one in the morning. He also calls a cab for Cas and makes Jo head upstairs to sleep it off in Ellen’s office.

“Dude,” Sam says as he forces a glass of water into Dean’s slack hand. “What the hell? It’s Wednesday!”

“Hump day,” Dean mumbles into his arm. He’s slumped over the bar, and Sam’s a blurry looming mass at the next stool over. Dean senses more than sees Benny, lurking not too far away.

“Benny,” Sam says disapprovingly over Dean’s head, “You should’ve cut him off.”

“Don’t blame me,” Benny says, a hard edge to his voice. “Jo stole a bottle of Jack while I was in the kitchen. She poured them shots after I said enough.”

Sam’s eyebrows fly to his hairline. “‘Them?’” he repeats.

“Him and Cas,” Benny confirms.

“Hey-!” Dean starts, a full second too late.

The damage has already been done, judging by the way Sam’s mouth falls open in surprise and maybe anger. “Cas - Castiel Novak was here?” he demands.

“Sure,” Benny says easily before he catches sight of Sam’s face.

Dean is going to kill him for spilling the beans - once the floor stops tilting. Nothing’s more embarassing than tripping over your own feet on the way to murder.

Over Dean’s head, Benny asks Sam, “You know him?”

“Only by reputation,” Sam says through gritted teeth. He pokes Dean, hard, in the arm. 

Dean makes a noise of protest and bats Sam’s hand out of the way. He misses. Slaps the bar instead.

Benny laughs, the asshole.

Sam doesn’t let up. “You were drinking with Castiel Novak?”

Dean raises his head sullenly. “Don’t call him that.”

“Why?” Sam demands snootily, “That’s his name.”

“Yeah, but you say it all…” Dean vaguely waves his hand in the direction of Sam’s now-colossal bitchface.

Sam pushes the water glass closer. “Drink.”

“Aye aye, Sammy.” Dean tips the glass back and is mildly impressed he doesn’t spill anything down his shirt.

As Dean gulps down the water, Sam asks Benny, “How long has Castiel been coming here?”

“A few months.” Benny walks around the bar, asking suspiciously, “Why? Is he not the sort who should be welcome?”

Sam sighs. “You don’t know, do you?” His eyes flick down to the plain black armband covering Dean’s soulmark. Dean bought it a few days ago, for whenever he stops by the Roadhouse and whenever Cas has a session booked.

Benny crosses his arms over his chest, his face impassive. “What the hell kind of question is that?” he asks, simmering with barely-concealed irritation.

And this was why Dean didn’t call Sam himself. Benny and Sam have never really gotten along. Benny was Dean’s first client, went with him to his first tattoo convention, and was the first person outside their immediate family to encourage him. Dean doesn’t think Sam’s ever forgiven Benny for taking him down that path.

Sam sighs, louder this time. “Castiel is-”

“Sammy, don't you dare-!”

“-Dean’s soulmate.”

Thank god Dean is drunk for this conversation. Or drunk enough to sit this conversation out - either works with him.

Benny’s jaw drops open. Dean sips at his water as Benny’s eyes bore holes into the side of his head. “Congratulations, chief?”

Dean grimaces. “Not this time.”

Benny reflexively touches his own forearm, over Andrea’s name. “Why?”

“Castiel doesn’t want a soulmate, apparently,” Sam says before Dean can come up with his own version of the story. “He’s tattooing over his soulmark.”

Benny nods. “He showed me as much, the first time he came here.“ He scrubs a hand down his face. “I didn’t realize.”

“Nobody did,” Sam says bitterly, “except Dean. And he won’t tell the one that matters.”

“Hey,” Dean protests, “If Cas doesn’t want me, I’m not gonna,” he hiccups, “force myself on him.”

“Jesus, drink more water,” Sam says hurriedly. “Nobody’s saying you have to _force_ it. But you should tell him.”

Dean shakes his head, and the room lurches. He stops. Nausea rising, he chokes out, “No, I shouldn’t. He’ll feel bad for me.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “He wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I do,” Benny counters as he nabs Dean’s half-empty water glass and refills in, “and I don’t think he’d be too put out to know you’re it for him.”

Dean scowls at the pair of them. “You’re not getting it.”

“Explain, then, Dean,” Sam says impatiently. “How is keeping this a secret helping _anyone?_ ”

“‘S helping Cas,” Dean says stubbornly.

“How?” Sam implores. “How can he make an informed decision if you’re keeping something this big from him?”

“He already made his decision when he came in for a consult,” Dean says bitterly. “He’s happier not knowing.”

“Are you sure about that?” Benny asks.

Dean grimaces. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be wasting my time with you mooks.”

“He seems to like you, if the past four hours mean anything,” Benny says dryly. “I spent more time trying to shut you up than serving customers who actually pay me to do my job.”

“We weren’t _that_ loud.”

“You almost knocked over the jukebox,” Benny says with a flat stare. 

“That was Jo’s fault!”

“Jo wasn’t the one playing Karate Kid to make a point.”

“He didn’t know what _wash on, wash off_ meant, dammit!”

Sam trades a weird look with Benny, and Dean’s stomach sinks to the floor. That doesn’t seem good for him. But before Dean can ask, Sam gets to his feet.

“Come on, Dean,” Sam says, “You gotta get home.”

Dean wobbles to a vaguely standing position.

Sam nods once to Benny and steers Dean out of the Roadhouse.

* * *

Dean wakes up to his alarm way too early. Plus texts from Sam.

 _Sam 1:38_ _  
__Dinner tomorrow_ _  
__My place_ _  
__You owe me_

Dean groans and drops his phone back on his nightstand. He rolls over in bed, head pounding.

Somehow, he doesn’t call in sick to work, mostly because Pam would flay him alive. He makes it out of his bedroom, swearing as he almost steps in a bucket full of flowers. He vaguely remembers Sam lugging them up from his car, but everything after Cas left the Roadhouse is a little fuzzy around the edges.

He’s pretty positive Sam told Benny Cas was his soulmate, though.

 _Dean 7:08_ _  
__Fine_

Dean tries to make himself presentable for work. After a cup of strong coffee and a cold shower, he almost feels like a real person. He’s watching a thawing hot pocket rotating serenely in his microwave when his phone vibrates with a new message.

 _Sam 7:19_ _  
__Bring a salad fork_

Dean scowls at the screen and taps out, _Screw you bitch._

 _Sam 7:20_ _  
__JK dude_ _  
__I’ll order Mexican_

 _Dean 7:21_ _  
__Sure. It’s Eileen’s funeral_

 _Sam 7:21_ _  
__Eileen’s spending the weekend at her sister’s_ _  
__She has a lot of old baby stuff to give us_

 _Dean 7:21_ _  
__So its just me who has to deal with your toxic burrito farts?_

 _Sam 7:21_ _  
__See you at six thirty!_

Dean makes it to work and gives Jo the cold shoulder for letting him get so hammered on Wednesday. At least she looks as shitty as he feels, with her slightly-greasy hair, bags under her eyes, and general air of _fuck off I’m hung over._

As Dean knows from experience, sleeping it off in Ellen’s office means getting woken up by _Ellen_ in the morning, and that’s no picnic.

He approaches Friday evening with a strange sense of dread he doesn’t ever associate with seeing Sam. There’s no way this isn’t about Castiel, and nothing sounds worse than sitting through a one-man intervention led by his stupidly earnest little brother.

Still, he promised he’d show, and Dean has never broken a promise to Sam before in his life. Plus, he’s not going to break his streak when there’s free food in it for him.

He rings Sam’s doorbell with a six pack of beer in hand and a defiant expression on his face.

Sam answers after a moment. “Hey,” he gestures Dean inside, “I got the burritos after work. They’re in the oven.”

“Great.” Dean makes a beeline for the couch. The television in front is showing the evening news. After spending all day crouched over various limbs and only breaking to sanitize his station, his back could use a break. He stretches out, lets his boot-clad feet hang off one of the armrests. 

There’s a rustling of plastic from the kitchen and the sound of the oven door slamming shut.

“I see you’re making yourself at home,” Sam says wryly as he sets the burritos and a bottle of hot sauce down on the coffee table and pops the caps off two beers.

Dean shimmies deeper into the couch. “This is almost as comfortable as my bed.”

“Good to know,” Sam says with a grimace.

With a groan, Dean sits up to take the beer and burrito from Sam. They take their first few bites in silence, both turning automatically towards the TV screen.

“Thanks for coming over,” Sam says at the first commercial break.

“I owed you.” Dean leans back on the couch and kicks up his feet on the coffee table. Sam sends him a dirty look but doesn’t tell him to knock it off. “How’re you doing? We,” Dean falters, “didn’t really catch up the other night.”

They get all the basics out of the way, how Sam is (good), Sam’s job (good), and Eileen (also good). Dean talks about the stir fry he made the other night for himself for dinner, and the new strawberry rhubarb pie recipe he saw on the internet.

“Dean,” Sam says, and Dean reflexively shoves more burrito in his mouth at the loaded tone in Sam’s voice. 

“What?” Dean forces out.

Sam rolls his eyes. “How’s Castiel?”

“How should I know?” Dean asks bitterly. “I haven’t seen him since Wednesday.”

“You don’t talk?” Sam asks, eyebrows raising.

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t even have his number,” he says to his burrito. “Sometimes I run into him at the Roadhouse, but that’s it. We’re not,” he juts out his jaw, irritated, “friends.”

Sam’s face says Dean’s full of crap, but he doesn’t jump in with a retort.

“Just spit it out,” Dean says wearily. “Whatever preachy bullshit you wanted me here for, get it over with.”

“I don’t - there’s no _preachy bullshit,”_ Sam splutters.

Dean glares at him.

“Iwantyoutobegodfathertomybaby.”

Dean freezes. He carefully sets his burrito down. “You wanna repeat that?”

Sam swallows. “I - Eileen too, obviously - would like you to be godfather to our daughter.”

“I thought this was about my soulmate,” Dean says stupidly.

“Yeah, well,” Sam says tetchily, “not everything’s about you.”

“Apparently it kind of is,” Dean says, rubbing his chin. “Godfather,” he repeats, mostly to hear the word out of his own mouth. 

Sam stares down at his barely-touched burrito. “You don’t have to answer at once. I know it’s a lot.”

“No, I -” Dean breaks off before saying, “You seriously want me to be involved? With your kid?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Sam demands, almost offended. “You’re my brother!”

Dean makes a pained face. “Yeah, but,” he shakes his head, “You’ve never really approved of... kind of anything in my life.”

“Hey!”

Dean shoots him a look, and Sam caves. “Look, it’s not that I don’t approve,” he says slowly, “but I always thought you could do better than tattooing at Pam’s. You’re a smart guy.”

Dean scowls down at his plate. “Really feeling the love here, Sam. So glad we had this talk.”

Sam makes a noise of frustration in the back of his throat. “I’m not explaining myself right.”

“No, I get it.”

“Well, I don’t,” Sam says frankly. “So why don’t you tell me? When I was in _high school_ I told you that I didn’t get it, and you refused to elaborate. Just told me to shut up and mind my own business.”

Dean purses his lips. “I didn’t say that.”

Sam rolls his eyes “You totally did. I went along with it because you had that constipated face on - that one you’re making now - and I didn’t want to press you on it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean mutters. “You really wanna know?”

“Why you’ve chosen to do the same job for ten years?” Sam asks eyebrows raised. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

Dean sighs. “I like making art, alright? It makes me happy. It makes other people happy. ‘S not rocket science, Sam.”

Sam waves off his explanation with his free hand. “I know that. But don’t you think you could be doing… more?”

“More?” Dean bristles. “Like what?”

“Like not working for Pam for one,” Sam says, to Dean’s complete surprise. “You’ve been at The Ink Barn for a decade. I guess I would’ve thought you would’ve had your own place by now. Maybe with Jo.”

Dean stares at him.

“Come on,” Sam says, “I’ve seen your bio on the website. You got some really cool stuff on there - that pirate ship, the grim reaper one, hell, those chrysanthemums you did on Donna are really nice.” He takes another bite of burrito, letting Dean stew on that.

“You think I could start my own business?”

Sam blinks. “You don’t?”

“I don’t know anything about running a business,” Dean says honestly.

Sam shrugs. “That’s what classes are for,” he says. “They’re online now too, so you don’t even have to leave your house,” Sam smirks, “or memory foam. If you go in with Jo, she’ll help out with that stuff. It’s not like she hasn’t picked up anything from Ellen.”

At a loss for words, Dean reaches for his beer.

Sam clears his throat. “It’s lately… you seem kind of off.” He tacks on quickly, “And I’m talking about before you met Castiel.”

Dean takes a long pull from his bottle. “I guess,” he mutters.

Sam nods once. “Anyway,” he coughs, “No rush on the godfather thing. Eileen’s got four months until D-Day-”

How could Dean have forgotten?

“I don’t need any time,” Dean cuts him off, “I’ll be godfather to your homemade poop factory. Sign me the fuck up.”

Sam’s shoulders sag with relief. “Really?”

Dean grins. “Really.”

Sam chuckles weakly. “That’s… good. Good. That’s good.”

“You didn’t think I’d do it?” Dean asks, half curious, half offended.

Sam doesn’t meet his eyes. “I wasn’t completely sure. We grew up on the road, and I remember how you loved it. You didn’t want to take over Bobby’s garage and settle down there. You roadtrip to every tattoo convention in the Midwest. I honestly thought you’d take off sooner or later. And you’ve been acting weird for a while, so. I wasn’t sure what’d you choose if I asked you to be the godfather, if all you really wanted to do was take off in the opposite direction.”

Dean scowls. “I’m not leaving anytime soon. And I hated living on the road, I only put on a good face because you were a kid.”

Sam’s face goes slack. “You did?”

Dean is so not going to elaborate on that. He sighs as he meets Sam’s eye. “You’re really sure about this? Eileen doesn’t have a brother, a cousin, or… an especially close hairdresser that has more experience with kids? All I know how to do is ink people and name every Zep song.”

“I mean, don’t _tattoo the baby,”_ Sam says with an exasperated eye roll. “You can play her Led Zeppelin, I guess.”

Dean grins.

“And speaking of tattoos,” Sam says, and Dean’s good mood vanishes at that self-righteous look on Sam’s face, “You should tell Castiel. He deserves to know that it’s your name on his arm.”

“Not anymore,” Dean says bitterly. “The cover up is almost finished.”

Sam picks up his abandoned burrito. “But you’re kind of friends now. You can’t keep the secret forever.”

Dean shakes his head, his heart sinking. “Yeah, I know,” he says quietly. “I’ll tell him after the tattoo’s done. If he wants nothing to do with me after that… at least he won’t be by The Ink Barn anymore.”

Sam shoots him a look that’s almost pitying. “He won’t react like that.”

“How would you know?” Dean asks as he takes a sip of his beer. “You’ve never met the guy.”

“Hm.”

 _“Sam,”_ Dean says warningly.

Sam’s only response is to let rip a silent but deadly stinker. Dean throws a couch pillow at him and opens a window.

* * *

Dean still catches up with Cas regularly at the Roadhouse over a pair of cheeseburgers and under Benny’s knowing eye. Cas complains about his job, and Dean doesn’t tell him he’s his soulmate. Dean suspects Benny waters down his beer in silent protest since he’s hardly buzzed by the time he gets home after most nights.

Tonight, Jo joins them, mostly to harass Dean and make fun of Cas.

“Burgers again?” Jo says in distaste as Benny sets the plates down on the bar. “I swear, you guys are the most boring couple ever.”

Dean scowls at her. “Not a couple.”

Cas, his mouth full of _free_ burger, glares. He swallows. “These make me very happy.”

“What he said.” Dean aims a kick at Jo’s ankles, hanging a good half a foot above the floor. 

Entirely unrepentant, Jo swivels on her barstool to better see the pair of them. “Lame. How’s the ink coming along, Cas?”

Cas pushes up his sleeve. “Well, I think,” he says, holding out his arm for Jo to inspect.

She leans way into Dean’s space to see. “Lookin’ good,” she pronounces. There’s something dark in her eyes as she trails a light finger over where Dean’s name is hidden.

Cas yanks his arm back. “If you don’t mind.”

“Sorry,” Jo says unapologetically. “Sensitive?”

Cas shrugs. “Not more than usual.”

Jo grins as she brandishes her bare arm. “I wouldn’t know.”

Cas’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

Dean bites into his burger, well used to Jo’s game by now.

Jo turns her head to stare at her blank soulmark, asking nonchalantly, “You ever see a blank before?”

“Knock it off, Jo,” Dean says, exasperated. “You surprised him. Four for you, Glen Coco.” He nudges Cas in the side. “She was born without one. It’s not a big deal.”

“Says you,” Jo sniffs.

“You don’t have a soulmate?” Cas asks eventually.

“Nope.”

“That’s what you meant when you said Jo doesn’t prefer men or women,” Cas surmises, turning to Dean.

Dean blinks. He did tell Cas that.

“No _romantic_ preference,” Jo corrects as she picks her sandwich back up. “I sleep with dudes, though.”

“How does that work?”

“You need me to give you the birds and the bees talk?” Jo asks, eyebrows raised.

“No,” Cas says, reddening. “I understand the mechanics of having sex.”

Dean snorts.

“What I mean,” Cas says, “is, you have sex without romantic entangements?”

Jo cocks her head. “Are one-night stands not a thing for you?”

Cas bites his lip. “Not really,” he says, muted. “I can’t imagine sharing that experience with someone I didn’t have a profound connection with.”

“Different strokes for different folks,” Jo says with a shrug. “I can’t have that connection, so…” She eyes his tattooed arm curiously. “If you want to save yourself for lovey dovey crap, why the cover up? Aren’t you making things harder for yourself?”

Dean takes a long pull from his beer, the back of his neck heating uncomfortably. 

Cas lays a protective hand over his forearm. “I suppose,” he says slowly, clearly thinking through the words before he speaks, “I don’t trust the romance to be enough.”

Jo scowls. “I mean, it seems pretty nice from where I’m sitting.”

“You want something like that?” Cas asks, surprised.

Jo shrugs. “I’ll need another drink for that talk-”

 _“Amen,”_ Dean says fervently.

“-but, yeah, a little. I want to go on dates, fall in love, have my happy ever after.” She wrinkles her nose. “But also I don’t at the same time?” She takes a sip of her bourbon before continuing, “I guess I want to want the love - but only sometimes.”

Dean tries to flag Benny down. He’s going to need a whiskey. Or ten.

“How about you, Singer?” Jo asks.

Dean nearly drops his burger on the bar. “What?”

Jo’s eyes flick to Dean’s armband, blocking his soulmark from prying eyes. “That’s new.”

Dean scowls. “I’ve had it three weeks, Joanna Beth.”

“Says the guy who’s worn the same jacket since he was sixteen and listens to the same seven mullet rock cassettes in his car,” Jo says pointedly.

“So?”

“You don’t switch it up much,” Jo says bluntly. “Like, at all.”

“A man can have layers,” Dean protests.

“Uh huh,” Jo says, a knowing glint in her eye. “So what’s with your newest one? Gotten gun-shy about your soulmate all of a sudden?” She leans in to stage whisper to Cas, “Dean puts on this manly man show, but he’s really a big old romantic at heart-”

_“Jo!”_

“-should’ve seen the way he teared up when he told me about how his parents met.”

Dean gapes at her. “We were seventeen! And drunk! You _said_ you were blackout.”

Jo sticks out her tongue. “I lied because I felt sorry that I could hold my liquor better than you could.”

Face on fire, Dean gets up from his seat. Benny’s fucked off to parts unknown, and Dean’s too painfully sober to talk about soulmates.

By the time he pours himself a few fingers - nobody bats an eye at the sight of him ducking behind the bar and helping himself - Jo and Cas have not moved on from soulmate talk.

Cas straightens guiltily as Dean returns. “Talkin’ about me?” He plunks his glass down by his empty beer bottle.

“You know it,” Jo says cheerfully.

“What do you want to know?” Dean asks grimly. With Jo sitting next to him like the most annoying conscience ever, there’s not much he can hide.

“Nothing.”

Jo throws Cas a disbelieving look, and Dean can tell she’s about to throw him under the bus. “He wanted the 411 on your soulmate sitch,” she says as Cas reddens. Bingo. “I told him you were holding out for the _one,”_ she sing-songs the last word, and Dean winces.

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” Dean says shortly.

Jo’s mouth falls open. “Seriously?”

Dean pours half his drink down his throat.

“But - you -” Jo stutters, _“That’s_ the reason for your new fashion accessory?”

Dean shrugs, lips pressed tightly together. The weight of Cas’s gaze from his other side itches under his skin, but he ignores it. “I guess I’m in Cas’s camp. Not worth it.”

“Since when?” Jo demands.

Dean doesn’t answer.

“This is big news, Trenchcoat,” Jo tells Cas over Dean’s head before she turns back to Dean. “Dude, I _knew_ something’s been up with you these past couple months! This is what’s got your panties in a twist?”

Dean sips at his whiskey, glaring straight ahead at his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

“You didn’t look them up and they’re, like, dead or something?” Jo asks with her usual level of negative eleven tact.

Dean shakes his head. Deliberately does not look at Cas. “They’re still out there.”

“What changed your mind?” Cas asks. He bites his lip. “Our appointments started a couple of months ago. Was it me?”

Dean smiles humorlessly. “Well, you didn’t hurt.”

* * *

The week before their last appointment, Cas is practically vibrating in his seat as he orders his usual at the Roadhouse. It’s only them this time, since Jo went to see a movie with Charlie and Aaron.

“You okay?” Dean asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, I think so,” Cas says as he reaches for his water glass. He doesn’t drink from it, tapping his fingers nervously against the sides. 

Eventually, Dean prompts, “You wanna share with the class?”

“I was offered a new job.”

Dean grins. “That’s good, right?” When Cas doesn’t jump out of his seat for joy, Dean’s good mood dies a quick and painful death. “Are you leaving?” he asks warily.

“What?”

“Leaving town,” Dean clarifies gruffly as he reaches for his own (barely alcoholic) drink. “Back to Milwaukee or something?”

“No, the job offer is here in Sioux Falls,” Cas says quickly.

Dean lets out a silent sigh of relief. “Good.”

“It’s at Mills Hanscum,” Cas says before Dean can properly recover.

_“What?”_

Cas bites his lip. “Your brother offered me the job - he’s going on paternity leave in a few months, and they need a replacement. They said there was a possibility of a full-time position if I add enough value to the team.”

 _“Son of a bitch,”_ Dean hisses under his breath.

Alarmed at his reaction, Cas adds in a rush, “It isn’t guaranteed. We’re not exactly sure how it’s going to work out with my non-compete clause, but I’m thinking of taking it.”

Dean thunks his head against the counter. He closes his eyes, exhaling, “Of course you are.”

Tentatively, Cas’s voice asks, “Should I not?”

Dean looks up at him, a sour, bitter feeling curdling in his gut. “No, you should,” he says through gritted teeth. “Take the damn job, Cas.”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Dean can’t look at Cas, so he drains half his beer first. “Jody and Donna are good people. You’d be lucky to work with them,” he says honestly. God knows they need the help. Sam’s complained about being short staffed and underfunded enough times. Dean makes a face. “Not that it’s my business, but have you asked them about money? The best they can offer is probably a heavy duty pay cut from the major leagues.”

Cas shrugs. “Money is no concern.”

Dean stares.

Reddening, Cas averts his gaze. “I am paid very well at Adler Milton, and, well, I’m sure you have a decent idea of my idea of a weekly splurge,” he says sardonically, gesturing around the Roadhouse. “My tattoo was the largest purchase I have made in a few years. I don’t travel. I don’t have a family to support. I don’t have a fancy car or house, and don’t want either one.”

“But still,” Dean says weakly.

“Unless this is about me working with your brother,” Cas says, his eyes narrowing in on Dean’s face. “I - you mentioned family is a touchy subject.”

“I did,” Dean marvels, more than a little stunned at Cas’s recall of his throwaway comment. “And Sammy can be an asshole, but he’s good at what he does. He cares, you know.”

“So you’ve told me,” Cas says. “I don’t think they care about much at Adler Milton except the bottom line.”

Dean sighs. “I should’ve known Sammy had something up his sleeve.”

“Has your brother mentioned me?” Cas asks innocently.

Dean nearly snorts his next sip of beer over the counter. He coughs out a few swears as he gets his breathing under control.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Cas says dryly as Dean recovers.

Dean scowls. “You might’ve come up once or twice.” _Or fifty times._

“You didn’t tell him to reach out to me, did you?” Cas asks, an undercurrent of worry in his voice.

“Believe me,” Dean swears fervently, “that was the last thing on my mind.”

“Because I don’t need any charity,” Cas says firmly. “I may complain about my current position, but, truthfully, I had planned to stay there for a number of years. If there is a family practice lawyer better suit-”

“If Sammy asked you, he meant it,” Dean says bluntly. “I can tell you that much. That firm, Jody and Donna, are like family to him. He wouldn’t risk his family for anything. If he says you’re their best shot, you’re it, buddy.”

Cas accepts that with a nod. “I will have to thank him for thinking of me next time I see him.”

“While you’re at it, slap him upside the head for me, will you?” Dean grumbles. “He’ll know what it’s about.”

“I will not do that.”

“I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

Cas smiles. “That’s not even close to my billing rate.”

* * *

 _Dean 9:31_ _  
__Couldn’t you just facebook stalk him like everybody else???_

 _Sam 9:45_ _  
__He doesn’t have a Facebook._ _  
__I checked._

 _Dean 9:46_ _  
__What a weirdo_

 _Sam 9:46_ _  
__You’re telling me._

 _Dean 9:46_ _  
__You did mean it right?_ _  
__About the job?_

 _Sam 9:47_ _  
__Of course_ _  
__He’s got a great record._ _  
__When I asked to meet, I just wanted to feel him out._

 _Dean 9:47_ _  
__Gross_

 _Sam 9:47_ _  
__Get to know him a little_ _  
__But he seemed to really hate working at Adler Milton._

 _Dean 9:48_ _  
__No shit_

 _Sam 9:50_ _  
__Anyway. I called J &D, and they okayed it _ _  
__I think Jody wants the inside scoop from the lion’s den_

 _Dean 9:50_ _  
__He’s really excited about it_ _  
__You wouldn’t know it from looking at him but he is_

 _Sam 9:51_ _  
__He is kind of odd._

 _Dean 9:51_ _  
__So?_ _  
__You still jump at Ronald McDonald ads and alphabetize your porn_

 _Sam 9:52_ _  
__I do not!!!_

 _Dean 9:55_ _  
__PluckyP.gif_ _  
__CooperCarnival.gif_ _  
__JohnWayneGacy.gif_

 _Sam 9:55_ _  
__Not funny, Dean_

* * *

Dean lifts the tattoo machine from Cas’s skin. “I’d say that about does it,” he says, his voice heavy.

Cas keeps his arm steady as he peers down at the completed design hiding Dean’s name from the whole world. “It looks beautiful.”

“It’ll look better when the swelling dies down.” Dean turns to put the machine and ink away. “We can take a few pictures if you want, before I wrap it up.”

“I’d like that.”

“Careful. Here, hold it like this,” Dean says as he carefully cleans up a few drops of blood and ink and repositions Cas’s arm. He grabs the camera and adjusts the focus.

He’d gone for muted colors for Cas’s tattoo. The hyssops are dark indigo, the asters almost violet. The stems crawl up Cas’s arm in clusters, shaded evergreen and emerald, lightly lined in black. Mason bees shine, almost iridescent in a complicated mix of magenta, purple, cobalt, and green, as they flit over Cas’s skin. 

It’s beautiful. It’s the worst tattoo Dean’s ever done.

Dean snaps a few pictures of Cas’s outer arm and inner arm. “Claire’ll send them to you by the end of the day,” Dean says as he lowers the camera. He swallows. “I’d also like to put it up here,” he gestures to his wall of art, “If that’s okay with you.”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas says, not looking up from his finished tattoo.

“Here,” Dean offers, “lemme get you all wrapped up, and then you’ll be out of here.” He doesn’t bother with the aftercare spiel - Cas has heard it twice already and has the mind of a steel trap. He bandages up Cas’s arm in silence.

“Dean,” Cas says as Dean gently presses down on the adhesive to keep it in place.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” Cas says unbearably sincerely. “I know you… disapproved of this tattoo, but it is truly a work of art. I am honored to have it on my skin.”

Flushing, Dean ducks his head. “Just doin’ my job, Cas.”

“I know,” Cas says, tracing the edge of the bandaging with a light finger.

Dean busies himself with taking off his gloves. Over the snap of the latex, he says, as offhandedly as he can manage, “They can still find you, you know. Just ‘cause you don’t see their name doesn't mean they don’t see yours.”

“I understand,” Cas says, “but this - your art - at least gives me some protection.”

Despite himself, Dean flinches. Cas doesn’t need _protection_ from his soulmate. 

“If they choose to locate me,” Cas continues, “at least they’ll never be completely sure.” He meets Dean’s gaze squarely. “One sided-matches are uncommon, but…” He shrugs, his eyes flicking to the divider separating Dean’s station from Jo’s.

“But _you_ know their name,” Dean says sharply. “You’d let them live with not knowing? Lord that shit over their heads until they kick the bucket?” 

Inwardly, he winces. The hypocrisy stings, but it’s too late to take the words back. He is _going_ to tell Cas. When the time is right.

“You’re assuming they’d stay with me for that long,” Cas says reasonably, and Dean opens his mouth in surprise. It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone wouldn’t want Cas as a forever deal.

Dean shakes his head to clear it. “And if they marched up to you tomorrow, showed you your name on their arm, said they’d run away with you forever, what would you do?”

“That sounds like a highly unusual sequence of events.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Work with me here, Spock.”

“I would say that I am very attached to my garden and my bees - they can’t be abandoned while I go on some farfetched journey with my soulmate.” Cas doesn’t meet Dean’s probing gaze as he carefully rolls down his sleeve over the bandage. “So I would say thank you, but I am not interested.”

Dean hitches a smile on his face. “Because of the bees?”

Cas swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Among other things. My life is here, and I am very content with it.”

“True,” Dean acknowledges, his heart sinking. Cas already told him as much during their second session. The news shouldn’t sting this hard.

“Like I said before,” Cas says as he straightens in the chair, “declarations of love are hardly enough for a stable, lasting, meaningful relationship.”

Dean licks dry lips. “So what is?”

“Friendship. Trust. Genuine like of the other person. My brother and his wife were immediately compatible, romantically,” he grimaces, “and sexually, but they’ve grown apart over the past decade. They had blind faith in whatever higher power paired them.” He shakes his head. “I’ve seen it at work - clear evidence our client was madly in love with their spouse, but something happened. Something broke, years or decades later, and they couldn’t carry on as they did before.”

Shit, Dean can’t guarantee if he got the slimmest chance with Cas, he wouldn’t fuck it up and do exactly what all those other pairs did.

“At least you don’t have to worry about any of that,” Dean says with an unconvincing smile.

Cas doesn’t answer at once. His face is troubled as he skims his fingers over his shirtsleeve. “But you are right. They could track me down.”

Dean gets to his feet. “They won’t.”

Cas throws him an incredulous look. “You can’t possibly know that.”

Dean presses lips together to keep in the dark laughter threatening to spill over. He inhales a slow breath to get a fucking grip and says, “Even if they do crawl out of the woodwork, you can always tell them to fuck off. If they’re halfway decent, they’ll listen.” He clears his throat and gestures to the front of The Ink Barn. “Well, if that’s it, Claire can-”

“Would you want to see my garden?” Cas blurts.

A smirk spread across Dean’s face despite himself. “With anyone else, I’d think you’re talking about something dirty.”

“I - ” Cas coughs in embarrassment, reddening the longer Dean looks at him. “No, I mean my real garden. I could show you my bees.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” slips out before Dean can think it through. 

Whatever, it probably won’t be any different than the dozens of times they met up at the Roadhouse. 

But Dean promised Sam he would finally spill the soul beans after their last session.

Dean sighs. “This weekend?” He can tell Cas about their soulmate connection after Cas shows off his plants and bees. Cas will be on his own turf - a much better place to drop that bombshell than in The Ink Barn. 

Cas smiles. “I can provide lunch and give you more flowers, since the last batch probably died a few weeks ago.”

“Sounds good,” Dean says, his mouth dry.

It’s Tuesday now, so that gives him four days to mentally prepare. That’s plenty of time.

With his free hand, Cas digs around in his pocket and holds up his phone. “Can you please give me your number?”

A slightly deranged laugh escapes Dean before he can rein it in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter will be up next week, along with the epilogue!


	4. Ambrosia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the edge of Cas’s garden, Dean inhales mown grass and a wild floral scent. Narrow dirt paths wind through the sections of flowers and plants. At least ten different plots teem with greenery. It’s beyond relaxing out here, even with Cas nearly vibrating out his skin for some reason. 

On Thursday, Claire hops in Dean’s chair at 10am sharp. Aaron’s manning the front desk since he doesn’t have any scheduled clients until noon.

“You ready?” Dean asks as he lays the stencil on the side of her stomach. 

“I’m ready,” Claire says, laying back and taking a few deep breaths through her nose.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Dean tells her. “We don’t have to do it now.”

“You sound like my dad,” Claire grumbles. “I’m ready, okay? I did the design _months_ ago.”

Dean nods as he checks the stencil to make sure it’s sticking. He has Claire booked for two sessions, today and another next week. 

Claire’s tattoo is on the larger side for what Dean would recommend for first-timers, but he knows better than to tell Claire that. She drew a magnificently detailed wolf’s head, jaws snapping at a full moon just out of reach.

At the first buzz of the tattoo machine against her skin, Claire tenses, but she doesn’t tell him to stop, so Dean pushes the needle in a little harder and gets to work.

“How’s the pain?” he asks as he’s rounding the first fuzzy ear.

“Manageable,” Claire says, her voice a little stilted.

Dean laughs. “That’s what Cas said too.”

Claire cracks a smile. “Figures.”

“Did you know he invited me to see his garden?” Dean says to keep Claire distracted. “I’m gonna head over to his place on Saturday. See what all the fuss is about.”

Claire’s eyebrows rise. “That’s like third base with Uncle Cas,” she says, smirking. “I hope you bring protection.”

“Shut up. It’s not a date.”

“You sure?” Claire asks. “So, what, is it more of an old man playdate thing?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “We’re just hanging out. You know, like _friends_ do.”

“Uncle Cas doesn't have friends,” Claire says frankly. “He’s got his bees, and that’s kind of it.”

“I dunno,” Dean says as he shifts his grip on the tattoo machine. “We’ve hung out at the Roadhouse a bunch. He’s definitely friends with Jo, since he’s met her and didn’t go running for the hills. Benny likes him. And you don’t know Donna, but she’s one of the partners at Mills Hanscum, and she hasn’t met a person she didn’t immediately adopt.”

Claire makes a considering noise in the back of her throat, but doesn’t comment.

“Anyway,” Dean says pointedly before Claire can circle back to the whole _not-a-date_ thing, “How’re things with your dad?”

“My dad?” Claire asks, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “Why?”

“Just making conversation.”

“About my parents’ impending divorce?” Claire asks dubiously. “Small talk really isn’t your thing, huh?”

“Hey,” Dean shades in the wolf’s snout, “if you’d rather talk about the weather, be my guest.”

Claire sighs and picks at her nails with one hand. “It’s good, I guess. Better than it was in the beginning.”

“The divorce?”

“No, my underground DJ career.”

Dean snorts a laugh, wiping away smears of ink and blood with his free hand. “You finally sit down and talk with your folks?”

“Yeah,” Claire mutters. “Uncle Cas was there, too. To mediate.” She makes a face. “It was weird. He was in like, lawyer mode. A total robot. Maybe that’s what he’s like at work.”

Dean lifts the tattoo machine to detail the wolf’s teeth. “You know, Cas is taking the divorce hard too, even if he doesn’t show show it. Everybody has their own coping mechanisms. When I was-”

_“What is that?”_

“Jesus Christ!” Dean yanks the machine back before can fuck up her design. “What the hell?”

“Does that say _Castiel Novak?”_ Claire demands, her voice shrill as she jabs at Dean’s forearm.

“No,” Dean lies. Badly. “Hey!” he yelps as Claire drags his arm closer for inspection. “Watch the needle, you psycho!”

“Oh my god,” Claire breathes as she looks up to meet Dean’s wary eyes. “You’re his soulmate.”

Dean yanks his arm out of her grip. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean, _it doesn’t matter?_ Of course it fucking matters!”

“He doesn’t want his soulmate,” Dean says harshly, “so it doesn’t matter.”

Claire stares at him. “You’re not serious.”

 _“I_ gave him his cover up,” Dean says darkly, “so trust me when I say, it doesn’t matter.”

Claire’s face scrunches up. “You’re so full of shit. He doesn’t know it’s you, right?”

“No.”

Claire almost crosses her arms over her chest, but pulls back at the last second, her eyes flicking down to the outline of her in-progress tattoo.

“Lie back and shut up,” Dean says as he shakes out his wrist and gets back in position.

“No.”

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Dean mutters as he picks up where he left off.

“I can’t believe you’re not telling Uncle Cas he’s your soulmate,” Claire retorts.

“I’m gonna tell him. Eventually.” 

Fuck it all. The last thing he needs is Claire _and_ Sam on his case.

“This weekend?” Claire presses.

“No,” he says because he won’t give Claire the satisfaction.

“Why not? Really make a real date on it. He’ll be showing you his stupid bees, and you’ll be like, _bam! I’m your soulmate!”_

Dean snorts. “You should drop out of school and become a poet. What a way with words.”

“Shut up.” Claire pinks. “You know what I mean. But make sure you take a picture of Uncle Cas’s face when you drop the S-bomb.”

“No freakin’ way. Because I’m not telling him like that.”

Claire exhales noisily. “He really likes you.”

“So does everyone else,” Dean says, his voice clipped. “I’m adorable.” He starts on the edge of the luminous full moon.

“He was probably too chickenshit to ask you on a real date.”

“Then that’s Cas’s problem,” Dean says without looking up as he etches the lightest hint of a sunken crater.

“He’s already thinking about getting another tattoo.”

Dean spares her one glance of surprise. “What kind?”

“I dunno, but I caught him looking at the website a couple of times.”

Shit. If Cas is going to be sitting for any more sessions, Dean might have to put off the whole soulmate conversation. Just imagining being stuck in his tiny six-by-six cubicle, this close to Cas, the whole thing as awkward as Sammy at Junior Prom, sets his teeth on edge.

In the ensuing silence, Claire says helpfully, “You’re being stupid.”

“You’re… stupid.”

* * *

Dean changes his shirt four times. After debating a fifth, he mentally tells himself he’s being an idiot and goes back to his first choice, a plain olive-green tee shirt since it’s too hot for a flannel. This isn’t a date, no matter what Claire said.

He blasts Metallica the whole way there to calm himself down, singing along obnoxiously loudly to Whiskey in the Jar and Fade to Black. At the first red light, he slaps on his armband he always keeps in the Impala. Can’t forget that little accessory. 

Dean parks in front of Cas’s house, a neat two story building on the outskirts of Sioux Falls’ city limits. It’s mostly suburban, bordering on rural. A riot of color snakes around Cas’s entire house, from the greenery in the windowsill boxes, to the front lawn, to what Dean can see of the backyard.

Safely in the Impala, Dean takes in a calming, centering breath. When that does jack shit, he grabs the six pack of beer from the cooler sitting in the passenger seat and gets out of the car.

Cas answers his door before the bell finishes ringing. “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey,” Dean says. He holds up the beers and tries not to stare too long at the sight of Cas in worn, grass-stained jeans and bare feet. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“It’s no trouble,” Cas assures him as he steps inside and takes the beer. “Thank you. Would you like a tour?” he asks, sounding nervous, “We can begin with the kitchen.”

“Sure,” Dean says as they make their way through the first floor of Cas’s house. They pass a dark living room with a squashy-looking couch and a rocking chair, of all things. “That’s the bathroom,” Cas gestures to a closed door. “Up the stairs is my bedroom and home office. And the kitchen’s through here.”

“Woah,” Dean says, stepping into bright sunlight. The whole back wall of the house is made of glass.

“It gets drafty in the winter,” Cas says sheepishly as he sets the beers down on the counter, “but it’s worth it for the exposure in the summer months.” He roots around in the drawers, cooking utensils clinking together. “Sorry,” he says as he yanks open another one, “I seem to have misplaced my bottle opener.”

Dean smiles. “If you can’t find it, no big. I can open it.”

“You can?”

“Give here.” Dean wiggles his fingers in the universal _gimme_ gesture.

Bemused, Cas watches as Dean carefully sets the lip of the bottle against the edge of the counter and slams down, hard, with the heel of his hand. The cap pops off. Cas silently hands him another beer, and Dean does the trick again.

Cas drinks about half of it in one go.

“Slow down, champ,” Dean says, eyebrows raised as Cas pauses to breathe. “I brought six, but we don’t have to drink all of them.”

“Sorry,” Cas gasps, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand.

“No worries,” Dean says, definitely concerned. “You mentioned something about a garden.”

“Yes, yes I did,” Cas says, tripping over his words and nearly his own feet as he leads Dean to the sliding door to the back yard. They pause on the back porch, next to a pair of wicker chairs and a small wooden table.

Clouds have drifted over the sun. The air is too warm but at least not skin-flaying hot. Dean grimaces. It’s late summer, so he’s probably going to get gross pit stains if he isn’t careful. 

Dean inhales mown grass and a wild floral scent. Narrow dirt paths wind through the sections of flowers and plants. At least ten different plots teem with greenery. It’s beyond relaxing out here, even with Cas nearly vibrating out his skin for some reason. 

Dean’s about to step off the back porch to inspect the plants, but when Cas doesn’t follow, Dean stays put. Instead, he leans against one of the wooden posts. “It’s really pretty, Cas,” he marvels.

Dean’s words don’t do much to calm Cas down. Still jumpy around the eyes, Cas bobs a quick nod and mumbles his thanks.

Dean’s about to ask about his bee hives when Cas blurts, “I was thinking about getting another tattoo. Claire told me to look you up on The Ink Barn’s website since it lists all your specialties.”

“Yeah,” Dean says slowly, unsure of what Cas is getting at. “‘S how most clients find us. That and Instagram.”

“I did, and - here,” Cas breaks off, frustrated as he thrusts his phone in Dean’s face.

The screen already shows the website, so Dean humors him. He reads through Aaron’s qualifications, Jo’s, and Tessa’s and examples of their work. But before he can get to his name at the very bottom of the list, Cas demands, “Is this true?”

“Is what?” Dean asks without looking up. It all seems normal. Tessa added a watercolor elephant, which looks awesome.

“Dean Winchester.”

Dean’s head snaps up, ice cold dread trickling down his spine. “What?”

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Cas asks in a hard voice. He leans into Dean’s personal space and deliberately scrolls down past the last of Tessa’s photos to Dean’s own profile.

Dean’s stomach is filled with lead as he reads _Dean Winchester Singer_ instead of _Dean Singer_ like the website has always shown. 

_“You’re_ Dean Winchester,” Cas says, his tone accusatory.

Dean licks his lips, his mouth dry. Fuck - fuck it all. He was _going_ to tell Cas. Maybe not today, but soon. And now his hand’s been forced. Dean’s fists are aching for something to punch, and his legs are tingling with the urge to make a break for it. Instead, he forces out, “I did tell you I was adopted. A name change was part of the deal.”

Cas stares at him, mouth opening and closing. “How could you not tell me?” he demands eventually, his voice tinged with outrage and hurt. 

Dean flinches, but he won’t be cowed by _Cas,_ of all people. “You came to _me_ for a cover up, man. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Not hide it!”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean laughs derisively, “That would’ve gone over real well.”

“It…”

“You would have taken one look at me and ran as fast as you could,” Dean says, a grim smile spreading across his face. “You were a _client._ It’s not my job to scare off clients. It’s my job to ink what they ask for, no questions asked.”

Cas gapes at him, mouth opening and closing unattractively. “But I thought…”

“What?” Dean demands.

“I thought we were friends,” Cas says, his voice small.

Dean sucks in a breath. “I - we are.”

“Then how could you not tell me?”

“Because I wanted to stay friends?” Dean asks, throwing his hands in the air. “If you knew - knew it was your name on my arm - would you have given me a chance?”

A flash of uneasiness passes over Cas's face. “Can I see it?”

Dean hesitates. But one look at those big, blue eyes and Dean finds his other hand already reaching for the armband. He eases it off.

Cas hesitates over his own name, surrounded by vibrant red phoenix feathers and neon orange sparks, written in bold black ink. His fingers hover in the air as if buoyed by the thickening tension between them.

“I don’t believe it,” Cas breathes, breaking the spell.

Dean snatches his arm back and snaps the band on.

“Dean,” Cas says, and the name sounds different, weightier, than usual.

“What?” Dean barks, a little more harshly than he should have, judging by Cas’s sharp inhale.

Cas runs a hand through his hair, more out of sorts than Dean has ever seen him. Normally so put together, Cas seems like he’s one more revelation away from breaking apart. His breathing is coming shallowly, and his fingers are tapping restlessly against the side of the half-empty beer bottle clutched in his hand.

“Hey,” Dean says, his tone carefully level, “Why don’t you sit down?”

“I’m fine,” Cas says automatically as his whole body turns to Dean. “I’m just processing.”

“You can process sitting down,” Dean reminds him.

Cas shakes his head jerkily. “I don’t want to sit.”

Dean holds both hands up in the air. “Your funeral, man.”

Cas runs a trembling hand down his face. “You asked me,” he says, his voice shaking, “if I was sure. If I really wanted a cover up. I…” he drifts off, a horrified look dawning across his face.

Dean takes a swig of his untouched beer, stares out at all the fucking flowers. “Like I said, it’s my job to ink what the clients tell me to.”

“What did you think of me?” Cas asks, his voice wrecked.

Dean grimaces. “I mean, I guess I was disappointed,” he mutters. He tips the bottle back again. “But it’s fine. You’re entitled to your own opinions.”

Cas clutches at his arm, fingers digging into Dean’s tattoo. “Jo said you were waiting for your soulmate.”

“I was,” Dean says, trying and mostly failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice, “until I found him. Then I decided the whole thing was a crock of shit and moved on with my life.”

Cas finally sinks down into one of the chairs. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Dean repeats woodenly. He turns away. “If you don’t want a soulmate, you don’t want a soulmate. I’m not going to try to change your mind.”

“Why not?”

Dean glances down at him quizzically. “Because that’s a jackass thing to do? You said you were happy with how things were. Why the hell would I mess with that?”

“I might’ve said I was happy,” Cas says in an undertone, “but I wasn’t.”

Dean’s mouth twists. “What, d’you need another beehive or something?”

Cas’s expression turns stony. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” Dean retorts, “since you love those little fuckers. It’d be like you making fun of a new tattoo I wanted. I get it.”

Cas ducks his head, a breathy laugh escaping. “Of course you get it.” He straightens, his blue eyes boring into Dean’s. “I meant, I didn’t know what I was missing in my life until I met you.”

Dean’s jaw drops with the force of his surprise. Hope flutters beneath his ribcage. “You can’t be serious,” he manages to get out.

“I don’t joke.”

Dean snorts. “You really do, dude. Don’t pull that shit with me.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “That’s exactly it. I do - or try to, but nobody but you ever really understands.”

Hopefully Dean’s utter confusion shows on his face. “So… you are joking?”

“Christ,” Cas mutters before he tilts back his beer. All this time with Dean must really be rubbing off on him. “No, I am not joking _now.”_

“Okay…?”

Cas sighs. “I don’t know why Claire tells me I’m too direct. Clearly, it’s the only method that works with you.” He sets the mostly empty bottle down on the porch as he gets to his feet. “You asked me, if my soulmate marched up to me, showed me my name on their arm, and asked me to run away forever, what would I do?”

Dean nods dumbly.

“I’m changing my answer.” Cas takes a step closer. “I’d say yes.”

It’s like Cas hit him over the head with one of his hives. Dean’s ears are filled with a strange buzzing ring, and his brain is struggling to make sense of Cas’s words. So like a dumbass, he can only repeat a stunned, “Yes?” 

“I have a feeling you don’t live too far away,” Cas says, the corners of his mouth lifting into a smile. “My neighbor, Cain, can look after my garden most days, and mason bees are largely self-sufficient. I tend to them so intensely because I enjoy it, not because they strictly need it.” He slowly reaches for Dean’s hand, giving him plenty of time to pull away. Dean does not, and Cas’s tentative squeeze jolts him out of his confused reverie. 

“But…” Dean can’t help his protest. “You said you didn’t want a soulmate.”

Cas bites his lip. “I didn’t want a partner that invests blind faith into a relationship. In my experience, a soulmate pairing hardly ensures smooth sailing.”

Dean exhales a rueful sigh. He sure learned that lesson the hard way. “You’re telling me.”

Cas smiles. “But I don’t think you’d take that for granted now.”

“Fuck no,” Dean says fervently. He flexes his fingers in Cas grip, not enough to shake him off, but enough to check that this is really happening. “You mean it? You’re really serious about this? Just ‘cause we’re friends, that doesn’t mean you owe me anything. Soulmate or no, you get a choice.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “I know that. You respected my decision to cover up my soulmark. You didn’t force me into anything. It’s your turn now. You-” Cas breaks off, his eyes raking over Dean’s face, “You’re not… obligated to take a chance on me because it’s my name on your arm. I must have hurt you deeply when I asked to cover up your name, and I understand if you need more time.”

Dean glances down at their clasped hands. “I knew you were it for me since you ordered that first burger at the Roadhouse.” Swallowing, he admits, “I’m just having trouble wrapping my head around all of it. That you actually want to do this,” he squeezes Cas’s hand, “with me.”

Cas takes a step closer so their chests are almost touching. He licks his lips, eyes darkening. “Can I kiss you, Dean?”

Dean doesn’t need to be asked twice.

* * *

Cas makes a little sound of surprise against his lips. 

With one hand still clasped in Cas’s and the other holding his mostly-full beer bottle, it’s a little awkward, but Dean makes it work.

Cas’s arm snakes around his waist, holding him in place and guiding him backwards a few steps until his back hits one of the wooden columns holding up the porch. Dean lets out a small, _“oof,”_ which turns into a moan as the wet heat of Cas’s tongue slips into his mouth.

Dean’s about to say, _fuck it,_ drop his beer bottle and kiss Cas like he deserves to be kissed, when Cas draws back. 

Licking his lips, Cas takes a moment to compose himself. Eyes dark, he says, “As enjoyable as this is, we can proceed with a tour of the garden-”

Dean can’t hold back his groan of distaste at that idea.

Cas laughs. “Or we can finish the house tour. You still haven’t seen my bedroom.”

Dean follows Cas inside, grinning like a crazy person, a wild sort of joy building beneath his ribcage. A future he hasn’t let himself even think about since Cas walked through The Ink Barn doors flutters at his fingertips.

“Ah, well, here it is,” Cas says awkwardly as he flips on the lights.

Dean steps further into the room. 

A queen sized bed outfitted with navy sheets sits in the middle of the room next to a night table. A dresser butts up against the far wall, adorned with pictures of Cas - oh wait, not all of Cas, some are clearly of Jimmy and Claire, plus a blonde woman who must be Claire’s mom. There’s a single piece of art on the wall above the bed: a lithograph of bees, of course. The east window faces Cas's backyard, and heavy blackout curtains are pinned to the side.

A large bookshelf takes up the other wall, filled with everything from thin bright yellow pamphlets to heavy reference books. One of the larger tomes, Dean actually recognizes from Sam’s collection. Some kind of family law bible.

“You’re too far away,” Dean complains as he tugs Cas closer.

Cas lets himself get dragged closer to the bed, smile playing around his lips. “I wasn’t aware we were in a rush.”

“No rush,” Dean counters, “but I’m an impatient bastard when I’m this close to getting what I want.”

“Are you?” Cas asks, eyebrows rising. “It seems to me you’ve been a very patient man, Dean Winchester.”

A shudder courses up Dean’s spine, and not in a good way. “I - can you not?” he asks, and, shit, he should’ve kept his big mouth shut judging by how Cas’s face falls. He explains, “I haven’t gone by Winchester in half my life. It’s… not me anymore.”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas says, contrite.

Dean kisses the unsure look off of Cas’s face. “Never mind. It’s just a name. It doesn’t matter.”

Cas opens his mouth, probably to disagree, but Dean shuts him up with another kiss. He cradles Cas’s face in his palm, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over Cas’s stubbled cheeks. Shivery warmth flutters beneath his breastbone, and Dean smiles against Cas’s mouth for no reason at all.

Cas’s hands tangle in the hem of Dean’s shirt, pulling him closer. Flush together, there’s no mistaking the hardness pressing against Dean’s hip.

“What’re you into?” Dean murmurs as he bends down to kiss Cas neck, lips worrying the pulse point at the hinge of his jaw. One of his hands slips down, palming Cas’s ass through his jeans.

Cas lets out a little gasp, his mouth moving soundlessly.

“Hm?” Dean prompts.

“Whatever you want,” Cas forces out. “I just need you.”

Dean grins against his skin. “That’s what I like to hear, angel. But there are a lot of ways to have me,” he says, grinding his hips deliberately against Cas.

Cas sucks in a ragged breath.

“So what do you want to do first?” Dean murmurs. “Because if you don’t have any ideas, I’d really like to suck you off, and then you can fuck me until I scream your name.”

“I-I’d like that,” Cas stutters as Dean crowds him towards the bed. He falls back with a surprised exhale, and Dean’s on top of him in an instant, his mouth insistent.

Blindly, Dean unbuckles Cas’s belt, the metal clinking as Dean breaks their kiss. “Condom?” he asks breathlessly.

Face flushed and eyes dark with desire, Cas says in a low voice, “I’ll get it.” He scrambles gracelessly for the nightstand and yanks open the drawer.

Dean chuckles as the lube and a condom packet are practically thrown at his face. He makes quick work of the rest of Cas’s pants and shimmies out of his own while Cas stares shamelessly.

“Okay, ready to go!” Dean brandishes the condom.

Cas barely stifles his laughter.

“What?” Dean demands as he jumps back on the bed next to Cas.

Smiling, Cas says, “I appreciate your enthusiasm.”

Dean yanks his shirt over his head. “I’ve been wanting to get you out of that suit for - what?” he asks as he takes in Cas’s slack-jaw face.

“Your tattoos,” Cas says weakly.

“What about ‘em?” Dean asks as he resists the urge to fold his arms across his chest defensively. “You didn’t expect me not to have any, did you? It’s literally my job description.”

Cas shakes his head. “Of course not,” he says quickly. “It’s… they’re beautiful. What do they mean?”

“Oh.” Dean’s rigid posture loosens.

“What is this?” Cas reaches out, his fingertip hovering a hair’s breadth away from the caveman-like illustration on Dean’s right pectoral.

Dean narrows his eyes, but Cas just stares guilelessly back at him. Sighing, Dean resigns himself to getting side-tracked. “It’s a wendigo,” he says as he takes Cas’s hand in his and presses it against his chest. “You can touch, dude. This isn’t a spectator sport.”

Cas tosses him a fleeting grin and trails his finger, feather-light, across Dean’s chest, down past the protection sigil. “And this?”

“A vetala,” Dean says in a low voice as Cas lingers on her tiny skull necklace.

Cas peers at a squat, goblin-like demon sitting atop the chest of a prone, naked lady below the vetala. “This one?”

Dean grins. “An incubus, plus victim.”

Cas’s gaze falls to the Hellhound leaping across Dean’s stomach, red eyes glowing, skeletal paws digging into the dirt. “I’m guessing this isn’t a normal dog.”

“A Hellhound, actually. Do you know any folklore?”

“Not really,” Cas admits. He moves on to the soul eater, the Vanir, the arachne, the kitsune.

“Bobby’s into all that stuff,” Dean says, unsure if he should be embarrassed or not. “He had a bunch of books lying around his place, and, I dunno, I thought they were cool.”

“Very cool,” Cas echoes gravely, leaning down further to study the right side of Dean’s ribs. “An angel?” he asks, his eyes rising to meet Dean’s. “Michael?”

Dean’s eyes widen, impressed. “How’d you know?”

“The sword,” Cas says, pointing. “A dead giveaway. He used it to cast Lucifer down to Hell.”

Dean blinks. “You religious, Cas?”

Cas raises an imperious eyebrow. “You never really looked up my name, did you?”

“... no.”

“Castiel,” Cas says, sitting back, “is a lesser known seraph. The Angel of Thursday.”

“Huh.” Dean glances down at himself. He doesn’t have a lot of real estate left. The tops of his shoulders are taken up with song lyrics, _“Got a mortgage on my body, got a lien on my soul”,_ from Travelling Riverside Blues, and _“I can't fight this feeling any longer, and yet I'm still afraid to let it flow”_ because Jo’s a menace and Dean can’t win a bet to save his life.

“Maybe I could squeeze a Castiel in here?” Dean squints at his abdomen critically, pointing at a bare patch below his navel, barely the size of the condom packet lying forlornly by his foot.

Cas snorts. “That’s hardly necessary,” he says as he reaches for Dean’s left arm. “I’m already happy with my representation on your body.”

Dean bites his lip as Cas presses a gentle kiss to Dean’s soulmark. Cas’s eyes flick up to Dean’s face, and Dean can’t help his gulp of anticipation. Deliberately, Cas trails kisses up to his elbow, from the edge of the phoenix beak, up the roots of the Tree of Life, the trunk, and the leaves. Dean inhales a sharp breath as Cas’s lips make their way along his collarbone, his pulse spiking as Cas’s tongue dips into the hollow of his throat.

“Maybe now’s a good time to get that condom?” Dean asks, his voice strangled as Cas lifts his head.

Nose-to-nose, Cas nods solemnly. “That is a good idea.”

* * *

Dean gives him one more hard suck before pulls off Cas’s cock. He smacks his lips a few times to get rid of the latex-y taste of the condom, but no dice. He’s just going to have to live with it. It’s not like he’s going to book it to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth. He’s as hard as goddamn granite and this show is getting on the fucking road if it fucking kills him.

Above him, Cas releases a little whimper. “Dean,” he growls.

Dean scoots up Cas’s body to give him a light peck. “I thought you’d rather come in my ass rather than my mouth. But if you’d rather me get back to it-”

“Where’s the lube?” Cas interrupts, head whipping around as he surveys the rucked up bedsheets.

Dean pats down the bed. “Got it!” he says triumphantly.

“Thank God,” Cas mutters as he hauls Dean closer. 

Dean laughs as they fall back together on the bed. He braces himself on his elbows, staring down at Cas. “Hey.”

Cas’s head tilts, one corner of his mouth quirking up into a smirk. “Hello, Dean.”

“You good?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Give me the bottle. Get on your back.”

Dean, all too happy to comply, scrambles into position. Cas watches, his eyes hungry, as Dean splays his bowlegs wide in a lewd, blatant display.

Cas squeezes out enough lube to coat his fingers. “Ready?”

Dean wiggles his hips. “Ready when you are, sunshine.”

Cas bites his lip, his forehead furrowed adorably in concentration, as he brings the tip of his finger to Dean’s entrance. He circles the rim a few times, freezing as Dean squirms at a particularly slow drag.

“No, no, keep going,” Dean urges, propping himself up on his elbows. “I’m also not gonna freak out if you stick it in me sometime today.”

Cas snorts. “You have quite a way with words.”

Dean groans as Cas plays with his entrance, his finger probing steadily deeper, but not enough to fill Dean the way he wants. He pushes down, but Cas follows the movement, a consistent tease that forces another frustrated noise out of Dean’s throat.

“Exhale,” Cas commands, and Dean almost doesn’t get with the program as Cas sinks his whole finger inside.

Dean releases a ragged breath as Cas gives a few experimental twists with one hand as his other index finger strokes his perineum almost soothingly. “You’re doing so well,” Cas says in a hushed voice as his finger picks up the pace, getting Dean used to the stretch. “Opening up so well for me.”

Face flaming at the praise, Dean squirms on Cas’s fingers. He feels seen and raw in a way very few drunken one-night stands have managed to accomplish. “Come on, Cas,” he mumbles.

“No,” Cas says pleasantly as he pulls out his finger with a lewd squelch. The tips of two fingers swirl against Dean’s hole. “I’ve waited a very long time for this. You’re not going to rush me.”

“But, dude-”

“No - buts,” Cas says, driving in two fingers, thrusting in deep along with his words.

 _“Christ,”_ Dean grinds out as Cas just misses his sweet spot.

“Good?” Cas asks, eyebrows raised, his face strangely apprehensive.

“A little lower,” Dean pants, “You’re doing fucking grea - _oh.”_

“Oh,” Cas echoes with a grin as he hones in on Dean’s prostate. He goes to town, unfazed by Dean’s bucking hips and bitten-off swears.

Dean’s fingers tangle in the sheets in a poor attempt to keep him anchored as Cas’s hands take him apart. A particularly hard thrust against his prostate sends lightning zinging down the backs of his legs and up his spine, and he can’t hold in a punched-out groan. Pressure and delicious heat is building, and Dean’s not going to last much longer.

“Cas,” Dean forces out, “I’m close.”

Cas blinks, his hands slowing. “Already?”

Dean chuckles weakly. “What can I say? You’ve got some talented fingers and it’s been a while.”

Overeager, Cas fumbles with the bottle of lube. A few squirts miss his hand entirely and splatter on the bedspread. Cas mutters a curse, but doesn’t pause slicking up his cock.

Dean grins as Cas shuffles closer, biting his lip nervously. “It’s, ah, been a while for me too,” he mutters as he lines himself up.

Dean grabs a couple of pillows and piles them under the small of his back. “Go slow,” he tells Cas as he lays back, hands behind his head, the very picture of carelessness. It’s kind of ruined by the way his breath stutters in his chest at the first touch of the tip of Cas’s cock to his hole.

Cas lets out a shaky prayer of Dean’s name as he pushes inside.

Dean can’t make a sound as Cas bottoms out. All of his attention is devoted to feeling every inch of Cas inside him. His mouth parts in a silent ‘o’ as Cas releases a shuddering exhale.

Cas doesn’t move, his hands gripping the underside of Dean’s thighs, keeping him in place. He shifts, spreading his own legs a little wider for a better stance, and Dean’s knees twitch as he adjusts to Cas’s cock inside him.

“Jesus Christ,” Cas mutters, and Dean could listen to Cas swear forever in that gravel-deep voice of his. “You feel…”

“Good, I hope?” Dean asks as he deliberately bears down on Cas. The stretch is fucking glorious, and he hasn’t been filled like this in so long.

Whatever Cas was going to say gets replaced with a strangled moan. “You’re going to be the death of me, I swear,” Cas growls as he starts pulling out.

“Is that right?” Dean asks cheekily.

Cas hikes Dean up higher for a better angle, ignoring Dean’s yelp of surprise, and drives his cock back into Dean. 

Dean flails for purchase, fingers scraping against the sheets, as Cas works up to a brutal pace, pounding into him. Cas reaches for Dean’s mostly neglected dick, but Dean grabs his wrist to stop him. “In a sec,” he says, in between ragged breaths, “I wanna feel you first.”

Cas nods, his face a mask of concentration as his thrusts slow. “I want this to last, too,” he admits, letting go of Dean’s thighs. They fall to the bed as Cas bends forward to capture Dean’s mouth in a kiss.

The first small roll of Cas’s hips takes Dean by surprise. As Cas’s lips draw away, Dean opens his eyes to find Cas’s baby blues open too, and staring. “Hey,” Dean murmurs. “You can move, you know.”

“I know,” Cas whispers back. He raises one hand to card his fingers through his hair. “You really are beautiful like this.”

Dean opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Cheeks hot, he feels like a butterfly pinned under a magnifying glass.

“You are,” Cas says, his eyes raking over Dean’s face, taking in every reaction, every downward twitch of his mouth and embarrassed flick of his gaze. “And I have a feeling you wouldn’t let me say such things under any other circumstances.”

“You’re damn right,” Dean says gruffly.

Cas smiles as he gives another sensual thrust, slow and meant to make Dean feel every inch of him. “Well, we’ll work up to it.”

“Hey-”

Cas cuts him off with a hard and dirty kiss. No finesse, only shared heavy breaths and the wet heat of Cas’s tongue licking into his mouth.

When Cas tries to pull away, Dean tells him, “Nuh uh, not done with you yet,” and wraps a possessive hand around the back of his neck. For fun, he wraps his legs around Cas, too, hooking his ankles at the small of his back.

“Like that?” Dean pants, he can feel Cas’s cock just brushing up against where he needs him most. The moment Cas moves, it’s going to be the beginning of the end, especially if Dean’s cock is going to see some action, trapped between their bodies.

Cas nods and bucks his hips experimentally.

Dean encourages him with an appreciative noise in the back of his throat, which turns to a barely-there gasp as Cas enters him, faster this time. Dean clenches around Cas’s cock, driving into him over again and again. He can feel the beginning tendrils of his orgasm latching on, pulling him closer to the edge. “Touch me,” he pleads.

It takes some maneuvering, and Cas nearly elbows him in the ribs as he wiggles a hand down between them. With quick, efficient movements, he works over Dean’s cock. Dean writhes under him, one second leaning into Cas’s grip, the next twisting away from the overstimulation until it’s all too much.

Dean comes, trembling and moaning.

Mouth open, eyes dark, Cas fucks him through it. As Dean finishes, Cas thankfully lets go of his sensitive cock. He grips the backs of Dean’s thighs firmly, sliding all the way out of Dean and back in. He finishes like this, staring at Dean’s face, his expression rapturous.

Cas huffs a spent exhale as he lets go of Dean’s legs. He leans back slightly, shoulders slumped, breathing heavily.

“Hey,” Dean says hesitantly, “Come here.”

“Hm?”

Dean grabs Cas’s wrist, his thumb swiping across the lower edge of the tattoo. “You’re too far away.” He gives a little tug, forcing Cas to hover over him again.

“I am?” Cas asks, confused as he blinks down at Dean. 

Dean nods, drawing him closer. “Lie down, dude. You look beat.”

“I wonder why,” Cas says, laughing lightly. “You’re covered in semen.”

“Whose fault is that? If you wanna be the first to get up, be my guest,” Dean says, raising his shoulder in a half-shrug.

Cas spares him one considering look before he grabs a corner of the sheet and starts wiping Dean down.

“Dude-”

“What?” Cas asks, not pausing or looking up from Dean’s chest, “I have to wash the sheets anyway.”

Dean shoots him a dubious look but settles back down. “If you’re sure.”

Once they’re as clean as they’re going to get and the condom is tied off and in the trashcan by the nightstand, Cas clambers back onto the bed and into Dean’s arms.

“I’m really glad you came today,” Cas says, as he throws an arm across Dean’s chest.

“Heh. Me too.”

Cas shakes his head, tickling Dean’s nose with his hair. “You know what I mean.”

Dean chuckles ruefully. “Yeah, I do.”

“I don’t usually put out on the first date, you know.”

Dean’s disbelief shows clearly across his face. “This was a date?”

Sighing, Cas raises his head. “It was supposed to be. Claire said - her messaging was very confusing. At first, she told me to ‘play it cool’ and told me not to tell you it was a date, but she gave me very strict parameters on appropriate clothing and called twice this morning.” He pauses. “She never calls me, Dean.”

Dean snorts. “She saw my soulmark while I was working on her on Thursday. Had an epic freak out about it. I bet that changed her mind.”

Cas gently tugs Dean’s arm closer so he can inspect the mark for himself. Dean shivers as Cas’s warm breath washes over his arm. “I like it,” Cas declares.

“I’d hope so,” Dean teases, “It’s your name.”

Cas’s eyes flick up to Dean’s face. “No, this phoenix. It’s fitting, don’t you think?”

Dean squints down at his own skin. “Sure?”

“It’s in the middle of rebirth,” Cas says, tracing a burst of neon orange sparks at the base his name. “The beginning of a beginning.”

Dean yawns. “I dunno, I just thought it was cool.”

Cas shoots him a pointed look, and Dean gets with the program. He straightens guiltily as Cas asks, “Was it supposed to symbolize a new life with your soulmate?”

Dean nods warily.

“Good,” Cas says as he burrows deeper into Dean’s arms. “I like it even more now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for the Epilogue, up tomorrow!


	5. Epilogue: Primrose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To celebrate finally moving in with Cas, Dean gets little mason bees tattooed on his knuckles and Cas’s handprint on his shoulder. The shoulder had already been inked, but Dean was hardly sorry to get rid of the opening lyrics to “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” Jo giggled the whole time she did the cover up.

Dean and Jo open Ink It Black ten months later. Benny is their first client, even though he’s running out of space for new tats. Jo, undeterred, says she can find a spot. Andrea insists on staying as Benny’s moral support - mostly so she can roast him along with Jo and Dean for a full hour as he sits in Jo’s chair, ass up and face red.

To save money after starting a new business, and for a bunch of other reasons, Dean moves in with Cas. He’d never been particularly attached to his apartment. After Sam moved out, it had never really felt like home with just him.

To celebrate the occasion, Dean gets little mason bees tattooed on his knuckles and Cas’s handprint on his shoulder. The shoulder had already been inked, but Dean was hardly sorry to get rid of the opening lyrics to “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” Jo giggled the whole time she did the coverup.

Cas buys his first honeybee hive. Apparently honeybees require a bit more upkeep than mason bees, what with all the honey they vomit up and beeswax they produce.

Unfortunately, Cas’s overwhelming enthusiasm for bees eclipses any talent for construction. At least he has Dean to hammer together the frames while he reads out from the booklet instructions like a good supervisor.

By twelve-thirty, Dean’s blinking sweat droplets out of his eyes and deeply regretting not wearing shorts. Cas, of course, is as composed as ever in Dean’s black Sweetwater Inkfest sweatshirt (unzipped) and his gardening jeans.

“Okay,” Dean says as he straightens, his back popping. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a break.” He gets to his feet.

Cas looks up from the instructions, his furrowed brows smoothing over. “I could get us some lemonade?”

Dean hums as he collapses into one of the wicker chairs. “Is it time for lunch yet?”

“Technically yes,” Cas says wryly. He gets to his feet. “But we ate breakfast an hour ago because of our late start.” 

“Not my fault,” Dean shoots back. “You shouldn’t have tempted me.”

“What, with my bedhead and morning breath?”

Dean smirks. “So sexy.”

Cas snorts as he disappears into the house.

Dean grimaces as beads of sweat hover above his eyes, threatening to fall. He’s already a little sunburned from helping Cas weed last weekend. But this is what he gets from shacking up with a gardener. Since early spring, Cas has spent a minimum of six hours each weekend fertilizing, planting, pruning, and communing with nature and shit. Dean mostly leaves him to it unless Cas asks for his help. 

Cas needs his Cas time, just as Dean needs to head out in Baby every once in a while and drive nowhere, blasting Boston and AC/DC.

Dean had a little reprieve yesterday since Cas had to go into the office to help Donna for a few hours with one of her cases, but today was beehive day, and Dean wasn’t about to let him tackle it solo. God forbid Cas misses a screw, and the hive collapses. He’d probably feel compelled to dig each bee a tiny bee grave and erect a mouse-sized mausoleum for the queen.

Dean uses the hem of his worn band tee to wipe at his forehead. The light breeze against his bare stomach is nice, so he lets the area air out a little. Despite the heat, it is a beautiful day out.

_Crash._

Dean startles, eyes wide as he drops his shirt. Cas stands in between the sliding glass doors, a smashed glass at his feet, one intact glass in his other hand. Lemonade seeps over the porch floorboards.

“What the hell?” Dean yelps as Cas bends down to pick up the pieces like an idiot, “Hold on, lemme get the broom.” He bounds to his feet and darts into the kitchen. _“Don’t touch anything!”_

“Dean,” Cas’s voice carries behind him, “I got it!”

“You’ll slice your hand open!” Dean hollers as he grabs the little dustpan below the sink and sprints back out. He elbows Cas back into safety and brushes the pieces of glass away. “What the hell got into you?”

Cas mutters indistinguishable words under his breath.

Dean works the bristles of the broom into the cracks between the floorboards to make sure he got it all. “You wanna say that again?”

Red-faced, Cas grumbles, “So sexy.”

Dean blinks up at him, a disbelieving smirk spreading across his face. “Seriously?”

Cas shrugs. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you shirtless.”

“We banged this morning.”

Cas wrinkles his nose at the word like he always does, which is why Dean uses it. “Yes, but it was dark. You - against my garden - in the sun…” he drifts off, and now he’s not the only one blushing to the roots of his hair. “It’s different,” he says defensively.

“Uh huh,” Dean says as he kicks the dustpan out of the way and sidles closer. He places a hand on the one of Cas’s arms still supporting a glass of lemonade. “Why don’t you put that down-”

Cas’s arm crinkles.

Dean frowns and squeezes just enough to hear the bandage again. 

Cas makes a barely-there wince of discomfort.

Letting go, Dean demands, “What happened?”

But Cas doesn’t look pained _._ “I was - well, I was going to save it for later,” he says guiltily, meeting Dean’s eyes. “But I suppose there’s no point now.”

“Save what?” 

Cas takes off his sweatshirt, revealing a square patch of gauze about the length of Dean’s hand on his inner forearm. Inky black blotches have already seeped through, not in any shape Dean recognizes. Face set, Cas peels back the gauze and tape.

_Dean Singer_

Written in Dean’s own handwriting.

Cas swallows. “Ever since you moved in, it never felt right, not having your name while you have mine. I know this might be too little, too late, but I thought it was fitting.”

Lips pressed tight together, Dean reaches out to touch Cas’s new tattoo. His fingers ghost, feather-light, over the raised and reddened skin. “Looks fresh,” he says hoarsely.

Cas nods. “Jo did it yesterday.” He shifts his weight to his other foot. “I, ah, didn’t actually go into the office to help Donna.”

Dean snorts, his nose tingling and a faint burning in the corners of his eyes. Shit.

“Do you - do you like it?” Cas asks, and he sounds so goddamn worried.

Dean nods because if he says anything else, it’s not going to be pretty. 

“Are you sure?” he presses.

Goddammit, Cas. 

Dean roughly grabs him and pulls him in close. He smells like lemonade and honey, and his uncombed hair tickles Dean’s nose. “I fucking love it,” Dean says, sniffling in Cas’s ear. “I love you.”

“Oh,” Cas says, surprised and relieved. The tension drains out of him, and he melts into Dean’s embrace. “I’m glad.”

Dean clutches at him tighter. “I never thought I’d see your soulmark again.”

“Well, this isn’t the same _mark_ , exactly. In fact, it’s notably diff-”

“Cas.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, Dean. And, I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm also on tumblr as [goldenraeofun!](https://goldenraeofsun.tumblr.com)


End file.
